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THE    EVOLUTION    OF 
CHRISTIANITY 


BY 


LYMAN   ABBOTT 


BOSTON    AND    NEW   YORK 
HOUGHTON,  MIFFLTX   AND   COMPANY 

1892 


(W.r 


Copyright,  1892, 
By  LYMAN  ABBOTT. 

All  rights  reserved. 


The  Riverside  Press,  Cambridge.  Mass.,  U.  S.  A, 
Electrotyped  and  Printed  by  H.  O.  Houghton  &  Co. 


PREFACE. 


We  are  living  in  a  time  of  religious  ferment. 
What  shall  we  do  ?  Attempt  to  keep  the  new 
wine  in  the  old  bottles  ?  That  can  only  end  in 
destroying  the  bottles  and  spilling  the  wine. 
Attempt  to  stop  the  fermentation  ?  Impossible  I 
And  if  possible,  the  only  result  would  be  to 
spoil  the  wine.  No !  Put  the  new  wine  into 
new  bottles,  that  both  may  be  preserved.  Spir- 
itual experience  is  always  new.  It  must  there- 
fore find  a  new  expression  in  each  age.  This 
book  is  an  attempt  to  restate  the  eternal  yet 
ever  new  truths  of  the  religious  life  in  the  terms 
of  modern  j)hilosophic  thought. 

The  teachers  in  the  modern  church  may  be 
divided  into  three  parties :  one  is  endeavoring 
to  defend  the  faith  of  the  fathers  and  the  forms 
in  which  that  faith  was  expressed ;  one  repudi- 
ates both  the  faith  and  the  forms;  one  holds 
fast  to  the  faith,  but  endeavors  to  restate  it  in 


r)-44fl.S4 


iv  FEEFACE. 

forms  more  rational  and  more  consistent  with 
modern  habits  of  thought.      To  confound  the 
second  and  third  of  these  parties,  because  they 
agree   in   discarding   ancient   formularies,  is  a 
natural  but  a  very  radical  blunder.     The  New 
Theology  does  not  tend  toward  unf aith ;  it  is, 
on  the  contrary,  an  endeavor  to  maintain  faith 
by  expressing  it  in  terms  which  are  more  intel- 
ligible and  credible.     I  hope  that  the  reader  of 
these  pages  will  discover  that  I  have  not  aban- 
doned the  historic  faith  of  Christendom  to  be- 
come an  evolutionist,  but  have  endeavored   to 
show   that   the   historic  faith   of   Christendom, 
when  stated  in  the   terms  of   an  evolutionary 
philosophy,   is   not   only   preserved,   but   is   so 
cleansed   of  pagan  thought  and  feeling,  as  to 
be   presented  in   a   purer   and   more   powerful 
form. 

Mr.  Drummond  has  contended,  not  that  there 
is  an  analogy  between  natural  and  spiritual  laws, 
but  that  the  natural  and  the  spiritual  belong 
to  one  kingdom,  so  that  the  natural  laws  are 
projected  into  the  spiritual  world.  It  is  my  en- 
deavor in  this  volume,  in  like  manner,  not  to 
trace  an  analogy  between  evolution  in  the  phy- 


P  EFFACE.  V 

sical  realm,  and  progress  in  the  spiritual  realm, 
but  to  show  that  the  law  of  progress  is  the  same 
in  both.     In  the  spiritual,  as   in  the  physical, 
God  is  the  secret  and  source  of  life  ;  phenomena, 
whether  material  or  spiritual,  are  the  manifesta- 
tion of  his  presence  ;  but  he  manifests  himself 
in   growth,  not   in    stereotyped   and    stationary 
forms  ;  and  this  growth  is  from  lower  to  higher, 
from  simpler  to  more   complex  forms,  accord- 
ing  to  well  defined   and   invariable  laws,   and 
by  a  force  resident  in  the  growing  object  itself. 
That  unkno^\^l  force  is  God  —  God  in  nature, 
God  in  the  church,  God  in  society,  and  God  in 
the  individual  soul.     The  only  cognizable   dif- 
ference between  evolution  in  the  physical  and 
evolution  in   the  spiritual  realms  is  that  nature 
cannot  shut  God  out,  nor  hinder  his  working, 
nor  disregard  the  laws  of  its  own  life ;  but  man 
can  and  does.     These  principles   constitute,  to 
borrow  a  musical  phrase,  the  motif  of  this  book. 
The  chapters  which  constitute  the  book  were 
originally  delivered,   extemporaneously,   as   lec- 
tures  before   the    Lowell   Institute   of   Boston. 
After  their  delivery  their  publication  was  called 
for.     They  had  not  been  reported  in  full,  and 


ri  PREFACE. 

compliance  witli  the  request  for  their  publication 
necessitated  writing  them.  In  some  instances 
criticism  showed  that  I  had  failed  to  make  my 
meaning  clear.  In  such  cases  I  have  modified 
my  original  statements.  But  this  has  been  done 
only  for  the  purpose  of  avoiding  misapprehen- 
sion, not  because  in  any  case  I  have  thought 
it  prudent  to  modify  the  opinions  expressed.  I 
have  not  hesitated  to  incorporate  in  the  book,  as 
in  the  lectures,  the  substance,  and  in  some  cases 
the  phraseology,  of  previous  periodical  publi- 
cations ;  chapter  fourth  is  to  a  considerable 
extent  such  a  modification  of  matter  previously 
printed. 

To  some  readers  the  chapter  on  the  Evolution 
of  the  Bible,  and  that  on  the  Evolution  of  the 
Soul,  may  seem  to  surrender  vital  and  essential 
articles  of  Christian  faith.  I  hope  to  others 
they  will  make  all  that  is  vital  in  the  faith  of 
the  church  concerning  justification,  sin,  and 
redemption  more  rational  and  credible.  My 
aim  has  been,  not  to  destroy,  but  to  reconstruct. 

LYMAN  ABBOTT. 

Bbookltn,  N.  Y.,  May,  1892. 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTES  PAQE 

I.  Evolution  a-sb  Religion 1 

II.  The  Evolution  of  the  Bible        ...        26 

III.  The  Evolution  of  Theology  :  The  Old  The- 

ology          68 

IV.  The  Evolution  of  Theology  :  The  New  The- 

ology      06 

V.   The  Evolution  of  the  Church         .        .        .  136 

VI.  The  Evolution  of  Christian  Society  .        .      173 

VII.  The  Evolution  of  the  Soul     ....  203 

VIII.   The  Secret  of  Spiritual  Evolution    .        .      229 

IX.  Conclusion  :  The  Consummation  of  Spiritual 

Evolution 245 


THE 

EVOLUTION   OF   CHRISTIANITY. 


CHAPTER  I. 

EVOLUTION   AND   RELIGION. 

Evolution  is  defined  by  Professor  Le  Conte 
as  "continuous  progressive  change,  according  to 
certain  laws,  and  by  means  of  resident  forces." 
Religion  has  been  defined  by  an  English  divine 
as  "the  life  of  God  in  the  soul  of  man."  It  is 
my  object  to  show  that  the  Christian  religion  is 
itseK  an  evolution ;  that  is,  that  this  life  of  God 
in  humanity  is  one  of  continuous  progressive 
change,  according  to  certain  divine  laws,  and  by 
means  of  forces,  or  a  force,  resident  in  human- 
ity. The  proposition  is  a  very  simple  one ;  illus- 
trated and  applied,  it  may  help  to  solve  some 
of  the  problems  which  are  perplexing  us  con- 
cerning the  Bible,  the  church,  theology,  social 
ethics,  and  spiritual  experience. 

All  scientific  men  to-day  are  evolutionists. 
That  is,  they  agree  substantially  in  holding 
that  all  life  proceeds,  by  a  regidar  and  orderly 


2        THJ?  EVOLUTION  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 

sequence,  from  simple  to  more  complex  forms, 
from  lower  to  higher  forms,  and  in  accordance 
with  laws  which  either  now  are  or  may  yet  be 
understood,  or  are  at  all  events  a  proper  sub- 
ject of  hopeful  investigation.  The  truth  of  this 
doctrine  I  assume ;  that  is,  I  assume  that  all  life, 
including  the  religious  life,  proceeds  by  a  reg- 
ular and  orderly  sequence  from  simple  and  lower 
forms  to  more  complex  and  higher  forms,  in 
institutions,  in  thought,  in  practical  conduct, 
and  in  spiritual  experience.  It  is  my  purpose 
not  so  much  to  demonstrate  this  proposition  as 
to  state,  exemplify,  and  apply  it. 

As  "evolution"  is  the  latest  word  of  science, 
so  "life"  is  the  supreme  word  of  religion.  All 
religious  men  agree  that  there  is  a  life  of  God 
in  the  soul  of  man.  Max  Miiller  suggests  a 
more  scientific  definition  of  religion, — but  the 
two  are  identical  in  sense,  though  different  in 
form.  He  says  that  "religion  consists  in  the 
perception  of  the  Infinite  under  such  manifesta- 
tions as  are  able  to  influence  the  moral  character 
of  man."  ^  The  Christian  religion,  then,  is  the. 
perception  of  that  manifestation  of  God,  histori- 
cally made  in  and  through  Jesus  Christ,  which 
has  produced  the  changes  in  the  moral  life  of 
man  whose  aggregate  result  is  seen  in  the  com- 
plex life  of  Christendom,  past  and  present.     As 

1  Natural  Religion,  p.  188. 


EVOLUTION  AND  RELIGION.  3 

all  scientific  men  believe  in  evolution,  —  the 
orderly  development  of  life  from  lower  to  higher 
forms,  —  so  all  Christians  believe  that  there  has 
been  a  manifestation  of  God  in  Jesus  Christ 
which  has  produced  historical  Christianity.  As 
I  assume  the  truth  of  evolution,  so  I  assume  the 
truth  of  this  fundamental  article  of  the  Christian 
faith.  With  the  scientific  believer,  I  believe  in 
the  orderly  and  progressive  development  of  all 
life ;  with  the  religious  believer,  I  believe  in  the 
reality  of  a  life  of  God  in  the  soul  of  man.  It  is 
not  my  object  to  reconcile  these  two  beliefs,  but, 
assuming  the  truth  of  both,  to  show  that  this 
divine  life  is  itself  subject  to  the  law  of  all  life ; 
that  Christianity  is  itself  an  evolution.  Apply- 
ing this  law  to  the  history  of  the  Christian  re- 
ligion, it  is  my  object  to  show  that  the  manifesta- 
tion of  God  in  Jesus  Christ  has  been  a  gradual 
and  growing  manifestation,  and  that  the  changes 
wrought  thereby  in  the  moral  life  of  man  have 
been  gradual  and  growing  changes,  wrought  by 
spiritual  forces,  or  a  spiritual  force,  resident  in 
man. 

There  are  in  Professor  Le  Conte's  definition 
of  evolution  three  terms.  Evolution  is  Jirst  a 
continuous  progressive  change;  second,  accord- 
ing to  certain  laws ;  third,  by  means  of  resident 
forces.  Each  of  these  elements  enters  into  and 
characterizes  the  development  of   Christianity. 


4         THE  EVOLUTION  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 

Christianity  has  been,  not  a  fixed  and  unchang- 
ing factor,  but  a  life,  subject  to  a  continuous 
progressive  change;  this  change  has  been,  not 
lawless,  irregular,  and  unaccountable,  but  ac- 
cording to  certain  laws,  which,  though  by  no 
means  well  understood,  have  never  been  either 
suspended  or  violated;  and  the  cause  of  this 
change,  or  these  changes,  has  been  a  force,  not 
foreign  to  man  himself,  but  residing  in  him. 
Thus  Christianity,  whether  regarded  as  an  insti- 
tutional, an  intellectual,  a  social,  or  a  moral  life, 
has  exemplified  the  law  of  evolution. 

A  few  more  words  of  exact  definition  are 
needed,  for  it  cannot  be  doubted  that  in  the 
discussion  concerning  the  relation  of  Christian- 
ity to  evolution  —  or  in  the  larger  and  less  exact 
phrase,  concerning  the  relation  of  theology  to 
science  —  there  has  been  much  ignorance  and 
more  prejudice:  on  the  part  of  theological  ex- 
perts, ignorance  respecting  the  true  nature  of 
evolution ;  on  the  part  of  scientific  experts,  igno- 
rance respecting  the  true  nature  of  religion.  The 
theological  discussions  of  our  time  grow  out  of 
an  attempt,  on  the  one  hand,  to  restate  the  prin- 
ciples of  the  Christian  life  in  terms  of  an  evolu- 
tionary philosophy,  or  in  terms  consistent  with 
that  philosophy ;  and,  on  the  other  hand,  out  of 
resistance  to  this  attempt,  either  by  denying 
evolutionary  philosophy  altogether,  or  by  main- 


EVOLUTION  AND  RELIGION.  6 

taining  that  the  Christian  religion  is  an  exception 
to  the  ordinary  laws  of  life :  that  it  is  not  and 
cannot  be  a  continuous  progression,  but  is  and 
must  be  always  unchanging ;  that  it  is  not  gov- 
erned by  certain  laws,  certainly  not  by  laws 
which  man  can  understand,  but  is  dependent  on 
the  inscrutable  if  not  capricious  will  of  an  un- 
known Person;  that  it  has  its  operating  causes, 
not  in  a  force  or  forces  resident  in  humanity, 
but  in  a  force  or  forces  outside  humanity.  As 
I  have  said,  I  do  not  propose  to  discuss  this 
question,  except  as  an  attempt  to  restate  the 
principles  of  the  Christian  life  in  the  terms  of 
an  evolutionary  philosophy  is  such  a  discussion ; 
but  it  is  evident,  if  such  a  restatement  is  to  be 
made,  that  we  must  understand  at  the  outset 
what  we  mean  both  by  evolution  and  by  the 
Christian  life. 

The  doctrine  of  evolution,  then,  makes  no  at- 
tempt whatever  to  explain  the  nature  or  origin 
of  life.  It  is  concerned,  not  with  the  origin, 
but  with  the  phenomena  of  life.  It  sees  the 
forces  resident  in  the  phenomena,  but  it  throws 
no  light  on  the  question  how  they  came  there. 
It  traces  the  tree  from  the  seed,  the  animal 
from  the  embryo,  the  planetary  system  from 
its  nebulous  condition;  it  investigates  and  as- 
certains the  process  of  development :  but  it  does 
not   explain,    or  offer  to  explain,   what  is  the 


6        THE  EVOLUTION  OF  CHBISTIANITY. 

difference  between  the  seed  which  is  a  living 
thing  and  the  grain  of  sand  which  is  dead,  or 
between  the  vitalized  and  the  unvitalized  egg, 
or  what  there  is  in  the  nebulae  which  produces 
out  of  chaos  a  beautiful  world  fitted  for  human 
habitation.  One  may  with  Haeckel  believe  in 
spontaneous  generation,  or  with  Tyndall  disbe- 
lieve in  it,  and  in  either  case  be  an  evolutionist. 
Evolution  traces  only  the  processes  of  life;  it 
does  not  offer  to  explain  the  nature  or  the  origin 
of  life.  Life  antedates  all  progress;  and  evo- 
lution only  traces  progress.  The  evolutionary 
theologian,  then,  must  believe  that  the  spiritual 
life  shows  itself  in  a  continuous  progress  accord- 
ing to  an  orderly  and  regular  sequence ;  but  his 
belief  in  evolution  will  throw  no  light  whatever 
on  the  question  as  to  the  secret  of  that  life  which 
antedates  spiritual  progress.  He  must  believe 
that  this  spiritual  force  is  resident  in  humanity ; 
but  how  it  came  to  be  resident  in  humanity, 
evolution  cannot  tell  him.  This  he  must  learn, 
if  at  all,  elsewhere. 

Making  no  attempt  to  explain  the  origin  of 
life,  the  evolutionist  insists  that  the  processes  of 
life  are  always  from  the  simple  to  the  complex : 
from  the  simple  nebulae  to  the  complicated  world 
containing  mineral  substances  and  vegetable  and 
animal  life ;  from  the  germinant  moUusk  through 
every  form  of  animate  creation  up  to  the  ver- 


EVOLUTION  AND  RELIGION.  7 

tebrate  mammal,  including  man ;  from  the  fam- 
ily, through  the  tribe,  to  the  nation;  from  the 
paternal  form  of  government,  through  the  oli- 
garchic and  the  aristocratic,  to  the  democratic ; 
from  slavery,  —  the  patriarchal  capitalist  own- 
ing his  slave  on  terms  hardly  different  from 
those  on  which  he  owns  his  wife,  —  to  the  com- 
plicated relationship  of  modern  society  between 
employer  and  employed.  In  this  movement, 
notwithstanding  apparent  blunders,  false  types 
and  arrested  developments,  the  evolutionist  sees 
a  steady  progress  from  lower  to  higher  forms 
of  life.  The  Christian  evolutionist,  then,  will 
expect  to  find  modern  Christianity  more  com- 
plex than  primitive  Christianity.  For  the  pur- 
pose of  this  comparison,  I  do  not  go  back  of 
Bethlehem :  then,  the  confession  "  Thou  art  the 
Christ,  the  Son  of  the  Living  God,"  —  now,  the 
Episcopal  Thirty-nine  Articles,  the  Methodist 
Episcopal  Twenty -four  Articles,  or  the  West- 
minster Confession  of  Faith  of  Thirty-three 
Chapters,  with  their  numerous  sub-sections; 
then,  the  simple  supper-talk  with  the  twelve 
friends,  met  in  a  fellowship  sanctified  by  prayer 
and  love  —  now,  an  elaborate  altar,  jeweled  vest- 
ments, pealing  organ,  kneeling  and  awe-stricken 
worshipers;  then,  meetings  from  house  to  house 
for  prayer,  Christian  praise,  and  instruction  in 
the  simpler  facts  of  the  Master's  life  and  the 


8         THE  EVOLUTION  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 

fundamental  principles  of  his  kingdom,  —  now, 
chui'clies,  with  preachers,  elders,  bishops,  ses- 
sions, presbyteries,  councils,  associations,  mis- 
sionary boards ;  then,  a  brief  prayer,  breathing 
the  common  wants  of  universal  humanity  in  a 
few  simple  petitions,  —  now,  an  elaborate  ritual, 
appealing  to  ear  and  eye  and  imagination,  by  all 
the  accessories  which  art  and  music  and  historic 
association  combined  can  confer;  then,  a  bro- 
therhood in  Jerusalem,  with  all  things  in  com- 
mon, and  a  board  of  deacons  to  see  that  all  were 
fed  and  none  were  surfeited,  —  now,  a  brotherly 
love  making  its  way,  in  spite  of  selfishness,  to- 
wards the  realization  of  that  brotherhood  of  hu- 
manity which  is  as  yet  only  a  dream  of  poets. 
And  he  will  expect  to  find  that  the  Christianity 
of  the  nineteenth  century,  despite  its  failures 
and  defects,  is  better,  intellectually,  organically, 
morally,  and  spiritually,  than  the  Christianity 
of  the  first  century. 

The  doctrine  of  evolution  is  not  a  doctrine  of 
harmonious  and  uninterrupted  progress.  The 
most  common,  if  not  the  most  accurate  formula 
of  evolution  is  "struggle  for  existence,  survival 
of  the  fittest."  The  doctrine  of  evolution  as- 
sumes that  there  are  forces  in  the  world  seem- 
ingly hostile  to  progress,  that  life  is  a  perpetual 
battle  and  progress  a  perpetual  victory.  The 
Christian  evolutionist  will  then  expect  to  find 


EVOLUTION  AND  RELIGION.  9 

Christianity  a  warfare  —  in  church,  in  society, 
in  the  individual.  He  will  expect  Christianity 
to  be  a  Centaur, —  half  horse,  half  man;  a  Lao- 
coon  struggling  with  the  serpents  from  the  sea ; 
a  seed  fighting  its  way  against  frost  and  dark- 
ness towards  the  light  and  life.  He  will  recur 
continually  to  his  definition  that  evolution  is  a 
continuous  progressive  change  by  means  of  resi- 
dent forces.  He  will  remember  that  the  divine 
life  is  resident  in  undivine  humanity.  He  will 
not  be  surprised  to  find  the  waters  of  the  stream 
disturbed;  for  he  will  reflect  that  the  divine 
purity  has  come  into  a  turbid  stream,  and  that  it 
can  purify  only  by  being  itseK  indistinguishably 
combined  with  the  impure.  When  he  is  told 
that  modern  Christianity  is  only  a  "civilized 
paganism,"  he  will  reply,  "That  is  exactly  what 
I  supposed  it  to  be;  and  it  will  continue  to  be  a 
civilized  paganism  until  the  civilization  has  en- 
tirely eliminated  the  paganism."  He  will  not 
be  surprised  to  find  pagan  ceremonies  in  the  rit- 
ual, pagan  superstitions  in  the  creed,  pagan  self- 
ishness in  the  life,  ignorance  and  superstition  in 
the  church,  and  even  errors  and  partialisms  in 
the  Bible.  For  he  will  remember  that  the  divine 
life,  which  is  bringing  all  life  into  harmony  with 
itself,  is  a  life  resident  in  man.  He  will  re- 
member that  the  Bible  does  not  claim  to  be  the 
absolute  Word  of  God ;  that,  on  the  contrary, 


10     THE  EVOLUTION  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 

it  declares  that  the  Word  of  God  was  with  God 
and  was  God,  and  existed  before  the  world  was ; 
that  it  claims  to  be  the  Word  of  God,  as  per- 
ceived and  understood  hy  holy  men  of  old^  the 
Word  as  spoken  to  men,  and  understood  and 
interpreted  by  men,  who  saw  it  in  part  as  we 
still  see  it,  and  reflected  it  as  from  a  mirror  in 
enigmas.  He  will  remember  that  the  Church  is 
not  yet  the  bride  of  Christ,  but  the  plebeian 
daughter  whom  Christ  is  educating  to  be  his 
bride.  He  will  remember  that  Christianity  is 
not  the  absolutely  divine,  but  the  divine  in  hu- 
manity, the  divine  force  resident  in  man  and 
transforming  man  into  the  likeness  of  the  divine. 
Christianity  is  the  light  struggling  with  the 
darkness,  life  battling  with  death,  the  spiritual 
overcoming  the  animal.  The  end  is  not  yet. 
We  judge  Christianity  as  the  scientist  judges 
the  embryo,  as  the  gardener  the  bud,  as  the 
teacher  the  pupil,  —  not  by  what  it  is,  but  by 
what  it  promises  to  be. 

The  doctrine  of  evolution  is  not  inconsistent 
with  the  existence  of  types  of  arrested  develop- 
ment, nor  with  deterioration  and  decay.  The 
progress  is  continuous,  but  not  unbroken.  Na- 
ture halts.  She  shows  specimens  of  unfinished 
work.  Evolution  is  not  all  onward  and  upward. 
There  are  incomplete  types,  stereotyped  and 
left  unchanged  and  unchanging;  there  are  no- 


EVOLUTION  AND  RELIGION.  11 

movements,  lateral  movements,  downward  move- 
ments; there  is  inertia,  death,  decay.  The 
Christian  evolutionist  is  not  therefore  surprised 
to  find  all  these  phenomena  in  the  evolution  of 
Christianity.  His  finding  them  there  does  not 
shake  his  faith  in  the  divine  life  which  struggles 
toward  victory  against  obstacles,  and  sometimes 
seems  to  suffer  defeat.  He  expects  to  find  faith 
hardened  at  certain  epochs  into  cast-iron  creeds ; 
thought  arrested  in  its  development;  men  strug- 
gling to  prevent  all  growth,  imagining  that  death 
is  life  and  life  is  death,  that  evolution  is  danger- 
ous and  that  arrested  development  alone  is  safe. 
He  expects  to  find  pagan  superstitions  sometimes 
triumphing  over  Christian  faith,  even  in  church 
creeds;  pagan  ceremonies  sometimes  masquerad- 
ing in  Christian  robes,  even  in  church  services; 
and  pagan  selfishness  poisoning  the  life  blood  of 
Christian  love,  even  in  communities  which  think 
themselves  wholly  Christian. 

"A  growing  tree,"  says  Professor  Le  Conte, 
"branches  and  again  branches  in  all  directions, 
some  branches  going  upward,  some  side  wise, 
and  some  do^vnward,  —  anywhere,  everywhere, 
for  light  and  air ;  but  the  whole  tree  grows  ever 
taller  in  its  higher  branches,  larger  in  the  cir- 
cumference of  its  outstretching  arms,  and  more 
diversified  in  structure.  Even  so  the  tree  of 
life,  by  the  law  of  differentiation,  branches  and 


V2      THE  EVOLUTION  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 

rebranches  continually  in  all  directions,  —  some 
branches  going  upward  to  higher  planes  (pro- 
gress) ;  some  pushing  horizontally,  neither  rising 
nor  sinking,  but  only  going  further  from  the 
generalized  origin  (specialization);  some  going 
downward  (degeneration),  —  anywhere,  every- 
where, for  an  unoccuj^ied  place  in  the  economy  of 
Nature ;  but  the  whole  tree  grows  ever  higher  in 
its  highest  parts,  grander  in  its  proj)ortions,  and 
more  complexly  diversified  in  its  structure." 
Consciously  or  unconsciously.  Professor  Le 
Conte  has  borrowed  his  figure  from  Christ.  The 
mustard  seed  is  growing  to  be  the  greatest  of  all 
herbs;  but  it  grows  in  all  directions;  some 
branches  pushing  upward  to  higher  planes ;  some 
growing  only  further  and  further  away  from  the 
original  stock,  different  therefrom  in  apparent 
direction,  yet  the  same  in  nature  and  in  fruit; 
some  growing  downward  and  earthward;  some 
with  fresh  wood  and  fresh  leaves ;  some  halting 
in  their  growth  and  standing  stunted  and 
dwarfed,  yet  living;  some  dead,  and  only  wait- 
ing the  sharp  pruning  knife  of  the  gardener,  or 
nature's  slower  knife  of  decay;  yet  the  whole 
"higher  in  its  highest  parts,  grander  in  its  pro- 
portions, and  more  complexly  diversified  in  its 
structure  "  than  when  theNazarene  cast  the  seed 
into  the  ground  by  the  shores  of  Gennesaret. 
Then,  a  solitary  physician,  healing  a  few  score 


EVOLUTION  AND  RELIGION.  IS 

of  lame  and  halt  and  blind  and  lepers  by  a  touch 
or  a  word,  —  now,  throughout  all  lands  which 
his  presence  has  made  holy,  hospitals  for  every 
form  of  disease  known  among  mankind;  then, 
a  single  feeding  of  five  thousand  men,  beside 
women  and  children,  seated  in  serried  ranks 
upon  the  ground,  —  now,  an  organized  benefac- 
tion, which,  through  the  consecrated  channels  of 
commerce,  so  distributes  to  the  needs  of  man, 
that  in  a  truly  Christian  community  a  famine 
is  well-nigh  impossible ;  then,  a  single  teacher 
speaking  to  a  single  congregation  on  the  hillside 
and  illustrating  the  simplest  principles  of  the 
moral  life,  —  now,  unnumbered  followers,  so  in- 
structing men  concerning  God,  duty,  love,  life, 
that  not  only  does  every  nation  hear  the  truth 
in  a  dialect  which  it  can  understand,  but  every 
temperament  also  in  a  language  of  intellect  and 
emotion  unconsciously  adapted  to  its  special 
need. 

Does  any  Christian  think  that  such  a  view 
is  lacking  in  reverence  for  the  Master?  He 
may  settle  the  question  with  the  Master  him- 
seK,  who  said,  "Greater  works  than  these  shall 
ye  do;  because  I  go  to  my  Father." 

I  may  perhaps  assume  that  the  scientist,  if 
he  accepts  religion  in  any  sense,  will  not  object 
to  this  view  of  Christianity.  If  he  believes 
that  man  is  a  spiritual  being   and  possesses   a 


14      THE  EVOLUTION  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 

spiritual  life,  he  will  welcome  the  attempt  to 
trace  the  development  of  this  life  according  to 
the  now  generally  accepted  principles  of  evolu- 
tion. But  certain  religious  minds  will  at  once 
interpose  an  objection.  The  religious  life  will 
seem  to  them  to  be  an  exception  to  the  general 
law  of  evolution.  They  may  hesitate  to  formu- 
late an  objection  which  their  feeling  really  in- 
terposes. They  may  even  be  startled  if  they 
attempt  to  formulate  such  an  objection,  by  dis- 
covering that,  in  so  doing,  they  are  denying  the 
unity  of  life,  and  thus  in  fact,  though  not  in  form, 
throwing  doubt  upon  the  unity  of  God.  But 
they  will  easily  find  this  objection  formulated 
for  them.  They  will  find  it  stated  by  Lord 
Macaulay  in  the  interest  of  rationalism.  "All 
divine  truth,"  he  says,  "is,  according  to  the  doc- 
trine of  all  Protestant  churches,  revealed  in  cer- 
tain books.  It  is  equally  open  to  all  who,  in 
any  age,  can  read  those  books ;  nor  can  all  the 
discoveries  of  all  the  philosophies  of  the  world 
add  a  single  verse  to  any  of  those  books.  It  is 
plain,  therefore,  that  in  divinity  there  cannot 
be  a  progress  analogous  to  that  which  is  con- 
stantly taking  place  in  pharmacy,  geology,  and 
navigation.  A  Christian  of  the  fifth  century 
with  a  Bible  is  neither  better  nor  worse  situated 
than  a  Christian  of  the  nineteenth  century  with 
a  Bible,  candor  and  natural  acuteness  being  of 


EVOLUTION  AND  RELIGION.  15 

course  supposed  equal."  ^  They  will  find  the 
same  objection  to  progress  in  religion  stated 
with  equal  vigor  by  Dean  Burgon,  but  in  the 
interest  of  theological  conservatism.  "The  es- 
sential difference  between  theology  and  every 
other  science  which  can  be  named  is  this :  that 
whereas  the  others  are  progressive,  theology 
does  not  admit  of  progress,  and  that  for  the  rea- 
son already  assigned,  viz.,  because  it  came  to 
man,  in  the  first  instance,  not  as  a  partial  dis- 
covery, but  as  a  complete  revelation.  Whereas, 
therefore,  in  the  investigation  of  natural  phe- 
nomena, man's  business  is  to  discover  some- 
thing neu\  theology  bids  its  professors  inquire 
for  what  is  old.^^^ 

This  objection  cannot  be  met  by  analogical 
arguments  from  other  departments  of  thought 
and  life,  for  its  gist  lies  in  a  supposed  contrast 
between  theology,  the  science  of  the  divine  life, 
and  all  other  sciences.  The  Bible  is  interpreted, 
alike  by  Lord  Macaulay  and  by  Dean  Burgon, 
alike  by  the  apostle  of  a  cultivated  agnosticism 
and  by  the  representative  of  a  conservative  ec- 
clesiasticism,  as  a  bar  to  progress  in  theology. 
It  would  be  vain  to  point  out  that  the  Christian- 

^  Macaulay's  Essay  on  Ranke's  "History  of  the  Popes," 
Miscellaneous  Works,  vol.  ii.  p.  618. 

^  Dean  Burgon,  in  the  Fortnightly  Review  for  April,  1887, 
p.  606. 


16      THE  EVOLUTION  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 

ity  of  the  nineteenth  century  is  not  the  same  as 
the  Christianity  of  the  first  century.  The  reply 
will  be  that  it  is  not  the  same  because  of  the  de- 
cadence into  which  the  church  has  fallen.  We 
turn,  then,  to  the  Bible  itseK,  since  those  who 
deny  that  progress  may  be  predicated  of  religion 
claim  to  base  this  denial  wholly  upon  the  Bible, 
and  ask  whether  it  claims  to  prevent  or  to  pro- 
mote progress  in  religious  thought  ;  whether 
its  command  is  "halt"  or  "forward  march;" 
whether,  in  Dean  Burgon's  phrase,  it  forbids 
men  to  discover  aught  that  is  new,  and  com- 
mands those  who  believe  in  it  to  inquire  only 
for  what  is  old. 

To  ask  this  question  is  to  answer  it.  The  most 
casual  glance  at  the  Bible  discloses  the  fact  that, 
from  its  opening  to  its  closing  utterance,  it  is 
the  record  of  progress,  a  call  to  progress,  an  in- 
spiration to  progress.  Its  face  is  always  set 
towards  the  future.  The  story  of  the  Fall  in 
Genesis  is  in  some  respects  similar  to  that  in 
other  ancient  legends;  but  Genesis  alone  con- 
tains a  promise  of  restoration,  "  He  shall  bruise 
thy  heel,  but  thou  shalt  bruise  his  head."  Poi- 
soned shalt  thou  be  by  the  spirit  of  evil,  but  the 
spirit  of  evil  shall  be  ground  to  powder  beneath 
thy  feet  at  last.  The  story  of  the  Deluge  is  com- 
mon to  Genesis  and  other  traditions  as  ancient 
or  more  ancient ;  but  it  is  in  Genesis  that  the 


EVOLUTION  AND  RELIGION.  17 

rainbow  spans  the  retreating  cloud,  bidding  man 
look  forward  with  hope  to  a  divinely  ordered 
future.  Abraham  is  led  out  of  the  land  of  his 
idolatry  by  a  promise  to  be  fulfilled,  not  in  his 
time,  but  in  that  of  his  children's  children. 
Israel  is  summoned  out  of  Egypt  by  the  expec- 
tation of  a  future  prosperity  for  which  the  past 
and  the  present  give  no  warrant.  The  Taber- 
nacle in  the  Wilderness  is  a  preparation  for  a 
Temple  in  the  Holy  Land.  The  Temple  is  de- 
stroyed forever,  and  with  it  the  idolatrous  idea 
that  God's  presence  is  confined  to  holy  places, 
or  his  revelation  of  himself  to  particular  forms ; 
in  its  place,  seventy  years  of  exile  give  to  the 
Jewish  people  the  Synagogiie  and  the  Holy 
Scrij^tures.  From  Genesis  to  Malachi  the  faces 
of  patriarch,  prophet,  and  priest  are  turned  to 
the  future :  the  religion  of  the  Old  Testament  is 
a  religion  of  expectancy;  the  hope  and  faith  of 
Israel  are  fixed  upon  a  Coming  One.  The  con- 
dition of  the  Jews  is  exactly  the  reverse  of  that 
which  Dean  Burgon  recommends ;  their  theology 
makes  it  their  business  to  look  for  something 
new,  not  to  inquire  for  and  be  content  with  what 
is  old. 

Three  or  four  centuries  pass  by.  The  new 
dispensation  opens  with  a  prophecy  and  a  prom- 
ise. Its  first  word  turns  all  thoughts  to  the  fu- 
ture.     Prepare  ye  the  way  of  the  coming  Lord 


18      THE  EV0LUTI0:N  of  CHRISTIANITY. 

is  the  burden  of  John  the  Baptist's  message. 
Jesus  takes  up  the  cry.  His  preaching  is  also 
a  summons  to  hope  and  expectancy :  "  The  king- 
dom of  God  is  at  hand."  The  people  dwell  in 
their  past ;  he  summons  them  continually  to  the 
future.  They  are  content  with  Moses  and  the 
prophets;  he  not  only  proclaims  another  and  a 
better  law,  but  he  also  declares  in  unmistakable 
terms  his  relation  to  the  old :  it  is  unfinished,  he 
comes  to  complete ;  it  is  undeveloped,  he  comes 
to  ripen.  The  process  will  be  gradual;  the  con- 
summation requires  time.  His  kingdom  is  not 
a  completed  kingdom :  it  is  a  seed  cast  in  the 
ground;  it  is  a  wheat-field  growing  up  for  a 
future  harvest.  His  teaching  is  new  wine,  it  re- 
quires new  bottles;  it  is  a  new  life,  it  requires 
a  new  garment.  The  institutions  of  Christianity 
must  be  elastic,  because  Christianity  itself  is 
a  growing  religion,  with  a  life  greater  in  the 
future  than  in  the  present.  As  the  end  draws 
near,  Christ  gathers  with  his  disciples  outside  the 
walls  of  Jerusalem,  and  as  the  setting  sun  gilds 
the  spires  and  domes  of  the  Holy  City,  he  fore- 
tells the  destruction  of  Jerusalem,  and  bids  his 
disciples  take  a  long  look  forward,  through  the 
gloom  of  that  dreadful  day,  to  a  redemption  to 
be  perfected  and  a  Second  Coming  of  the  Re- 
deemer. He  meets  them  in  the  upper  chamber, 
where  he  repeats  the  message  in  tenderer  words : 


EVOLUTION  AND  RELIGION.  19 

he  has  many  things  to  say  to  them  which  now 
they  are  not  able  to  bear ;  they  must  wait  for  the 
best;  it  lies  in  the  future.  As  he  ascends  out 
of  their  sight,  the  angelic  word  to  them  is  that 
they  must  look  for  his  reappearing,  and  through 
patience,  hope,  and  a  blessed  activity  prepare  for 
it.  That  which  inspires  the  apostles,  as  they  take 
up  their  work,  is  not  the  memory  of  a  great 
past,  but  the  hope  of  a  great  future.  They  are 
as  those  that  seek  a  country.  They  are  pil- 
grims and  strangers,  and  their  haven  lies  before 
them.  They  forget  the  things  that  are  behind ; 
they  press  forward  for  their  prize.  They  count 
not  themselves  to  have  attained;  they  follow 
after,  if  they  may  apprehend  that  for  which  they 
are  apprehended  in  Christ  Jesus.  They  look 
for  a  new  heaven  and  a  new  earth  in  which 
dwelleth  righteousness.  They  exhort  one  an- 
other to  grow  in  grace  and  in  knowledge.  And 
when  at  last  the  canon  closes,  the  last  vision 
which  greets  our  eyes  is  not  a  completed  city, 
but  a  city  still  descending  out  of  heaven  upon 
the  earth;  not  a  completed  victory,  but  a  Cap- 
tain riding  forth  conquering  and  to  conquer; 
not  a  kingdom  accomplished,  but  an  hour  yet  to 
come  when  the  kingdoms  of  this  earth  shall  have 
become  the  kingdom  of  our  Lord  and  of  liis 
Christ.  From  the  vague  promises  of  redemp- 
tion in  the  first  chapter  of  Genesis  to  the  clear 


20      THE  EVOLUTION  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 

vision  of  victory  in  the  last  chapter  of  Revela- 
tion, the  cry  of  patriarch,  prophet,  martyr, 
apostle,  and  seer  is  the  cry  of  the  Lord  to  Moses 
by  the  shore  of  the  Eed  Sea :  "  Speak  unto  the 
children  of  Israel  that  they  go  forward."  If 
Lord  Macaulay  and  Dean  Burgon  are  right,  if 
"theology  does  not  admit  of  progress,"  Moses 
could  not  have  added  to  Abraham's  call  the 
clearer  words  of  the  Ten  Commandments,  nor 
David  supplanted  the  Tabernacle  with  prepara- 
tions for  a  Temple,  nor  the  prophets  of  exile 
have  encouraged  the  organization  of  the  syna- 
gogues, nor  the  Master  substituted  the  Sermon 
on  the  Mount  for  the  Mosaic  Law,  nor  Paul 
have  completed  the  wisdom  of  Proverbs  and 
Ecclesiastes  with  the  diviner  and  profounder 
wisdom  of  the  Epistles  to  the  Romans  and  to 
the  Ephesians. 

This  whole  notion  of  revealed  religion  consist- 
ing in  a  revelation  made  once  for  all  and  there- 
fore forbidding  progress,  or  confining  it  within 
very  narrow  limits,  —  to  the  criticism  and  inter- 
pretation, for  example,  of  a  Book  or  a  restate- 
ment of  what  the  Book  says,  but  in  slightly  dif- 
ferent forms  of  speech,  —  grows  out  of  a  singular 
misapprehension  of  the  nature  of  revelation. 
The  sun  in  the  heavens  is  obscured  by  the  clouds ; 
through  a  break  in  the  clouds  it  appears  for  an 
instant;  the  navigator  catches  its  place,  makes 


EVOLUTION  AND  RELIGION.  21 

up  his  record,  and  by  that  record  thenceforth 
steers  his  vessel.  So  the  ancient  prophets  are 
conceived  to  have  caught  a  glimpse  of  divine 
truth,  entered  it  in  their  log,  and  given  us  the 
reckoning  by  which  ever  after  the  world  is  to 
be  navigated.  But  this  notion  of  revelation,  as 
something  external  to  man,  is  as  inconsistent 
with  Scripture  as  it  is  with  the  analogies  of  all 
education  and  the  fundamental  principles  of 
psychology.  Revelation  is  unveiling;  but  the 
veil  is  over  the  mind  of  the  pupil,  not  over  the 
face  of  the  truth.  This  veil  is  removed  and 
can  only  be  removed  gradually,  as  the  mind  it- 
self acquires  a  capacity  to  perceive  and  receive 
truth  before  incomprehensible.  The  figure  is 
not  original  with  me;  I  borrow  it  from  Paul: 
"Even  unto  this  day  when  Moses  is  read,  the 
veil  is  upon  their  heart.  Nevertheless,  when  one 
shall  turn  to  the  Lord,  the  veil  shall  be  taken 
away."  The  heavens  are  not  veiled  from  the 
pupil,  but  the  pupil  is  veiled,  so  that  he  can- 
not comprehend  the  stellar  spaces,  magnitudes, 
movements,  until  education  has  removed  the  veil 
and  so  revealed  the  truth. 

As  in  physical,  so  in  moral  science,  revealing 
is  a  psychological  process.  It  is  the  creation  of 
capacity,  —  moral  and  intellectual,  or  both.  In 
the  nature  of  the  case  it  can  be  nothing  else. 
Truth  cannot  be  revealed  to  incapacity.     That 


22      THE  EVOLUTION  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 

God  is  love  is  the  simplest,  as  it  is  the  most 
fundamental  revelation  concerning  God  which 
his  Word  contains.  But  it  means  and  can 
mean  no  more  than  love  means  to  the  individual 
soul.  The  child  in  the  infant  class  prattles  it 
artlessly,  scarcely  knowing  the  meaning  of  the 
word.  The  maiden  sees  a  new  and  deeper 
meaning  in  it,  as  love  looks  out  of  her  eyes  into 
the  eyes  of  the  bridegroom  at  the  altar.  The 
mother  has  a  new  revelation  when  the  babe 
upon  her  bosom  strikes  a  new  note  of  love  in 
her  heart.  The  aged  saint,  through  the  joy  and 
the  sorrow  of  love,  the  hunger  and  the  satisfac- 
tion of  love,  love  at  the  marriage,  love  in  the 
home,  love  at  the  open  grave,  has  learned  some- 
thing more,  though  not  all,  of  the  height  and 
depth,  the  length  and  breadth  of  love  immeas- 
urable; the  text  lightly  dropped  from  her  lips 
in  childhood  she  cannot  speak  without  bowed 
head  and  tearful  eyes.  As  with  the  individual, 
so  with  the  race :  love  means  in  the  Nineteenth 
Century  what  it  could  not  mean  in  the  First ; 
from  the  lips  of  a  Henry  Ward  Beecher  what  it 
could  not  mean  from  the  lij)s  of  an  Augustine 
or  a  Calvin. 

Thus  the  Bible  is  not  so  much  a  revelation  as 
a  means  of  revelation.  It  is  a  revelation,  be- 
cause beyond  all  other  books  it  stimulates  the 
moral  and  spiritual  nature,  stirs  men  to  think 


EVOLUTION  AND  RELIGION.  28 

and  feel,  awakens  their  life,  and  so  develops  in 
them  a  capacity  to  perceive  and  receive  the 
truths  of  the  moral  and  the  spiritual  order. 
God  is  not  veiled,  but  man  is  blind;  and  the 
Bible  opens  the  eyes  of  the  blind.  The  church 
has  indeed  often  adopted,  consciously  or  uncon- 
sciously, the  philosophy  of  Lord  Macaulay  and 
Dean  Burgon;  it  has  endeavored  to  crystallize 
truth  into  a  formal  and  final  state.  For  a  creed 
is  truth  crystallized.  But  a  crystal  is  a  dead 
thing,  and  truth  is  living.  Truth  is  not  a  crystal, 
it  is  a  seed.  It  is  to  be  planted,  and  what  comes 
from  the  planting  will  depend  as  much  on  the 
soil  in  which  it  is  planted  as  on  the  seed  itseK. 
The  figure  is  Christ's.  "A  sower  went  forth  to 
sow;  some  seed  fell  by  the  wayside,  some  upon 
stony  places;  some  among  thorns;  some  into 
good  ground  and  brought  forth  fruit,  some  an 
hundred  fold,  some  sixty  fold,  some  thirty  fold." 
Which  way  does  the  seed  look :  backward  to  the 
winter  or  forward  to  the  autumn?  The  fun- 
damental difficulty  about  all  attempts  to  define 
truth  in  a  creed  is  that  truth  is  infinite,  and 
therefore  transcends  all  definitions.  As  soon  as 
humanity  understands  the  creed,  the  creed  ceases 
to  be  to  humanity  the  whole  truth;  because 
there  is  truth  yet  beyond,  not  confined  within 
the  creed.  The  fundamental  difficulty  in  all 
attempts  to  reduce  truth  to  a  dogma  is  that  they 


24      THE  EVOLUTION  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 

are  attempts  to  reveal  truth  without  imparting 
life.  But  truth  cannot  be  revealed  except  as 
life  is  imparted;  for  we  can  know  only  as  we 
live.  Revelation  is,  of  psychological  necessity, 
progressive;  for  we  know  the  truth  only  as  we 
grow  in  life -capacity  to  know  the  truth.  The 
Bible  never  falls  into  the  error  of  the  church. 
It  never  attempts  to  reduce  truth  to  a  dogma, 
never  crystallizes  it  in  a  creed.  The  value  of 
the  Bible  is  not  that  it  furnishes  men  with 
thought,  but  that  it  makes  them  think.  The 
Bible  is  a  revelation  because  it  is  a  literature  of 
power;  it  operates  on  humanity  for  cataract; 
it  removes  the  veil  from  the  readers'  eyes ;  it  stirs 
them  to  see  truth  with  their  own  eyes  and  to 
think  it  in  their  own  thoughts. 

In  fact,  this  has  always  been  the  effect  of 
the  Bible.  Churches,  creeds,  and  theological 
and  ecclesiastical  systems  have  often  repressed 
thought,  checked  it,  or  at  least  tethered  it.  The 
Bible  has  emancipated  the  mind,  set  men  think- 
ing, and  created  differences  and  divisions.  Not 
without  historical  warrant  does  Kaulbach,  in  his 
cartoon  of  the  Reformation,  group  all  the  in- 
tellectual activity  of  the  Seventeenth  Century 
around  Luther  with  his  open  Bible  in  his  hand. 
The  Bible  reveals  truth  not  by  making  it  so  plain 
that  men  need  not  study,  but  by  making  it  so 
fascinating  that  they  must  study.     Lessing  said 


EVOLUTION  AND  RELIGION.  25 

that  if  one  offered  him  Truth  in  the  one  hand 
and  Search  for  Truth  in  the  other,  he  woukl 
choose  Search  for  Truth.  Search  for  Truth  the 
Bible  has  given  to  man  ever  since  the  Waldenses 
studied  it  in  secret  in  their  mountain  fastnesses, 
and  by  it  fed  that  independence  and  individu- 
ality which  the  ecclesiasticism  of  their  age  had 
almost  extirpated  everywhere  else  in  Europe. 

The  belief,  then,  that  the  Christian  religion  is 
a  divine  life  is  not  inconsistent  with  the  belief 
that  it  is  an  evolution,  since  evolution  offers  no 
explanation  of  the  nature  or  origin  of  life ;  it 
only  explains  life's  process.  The  belief  that  the 
Bible  is  a  revelation  from  God  is  not  inconsis- 
tent with  the  belief  that  the  Christian  religion 
is  an  evolution ;  for  revelation  is  not  a  final  state- 
ment of  truth,  crystallized  into  dogma,  but  a 
gradual  and  progressive  unveiling  of  the  mind 
that  it  may  see  truth  clearly  and  receive  it  vitally. 
The  Bible  is  not  fossilized  truth  in  an  amber 
Book ;  it  is  a  seed  which  vitalizes  the  soil  into 
which  it  is  cast;  a  window  through  which  the 
light  of  dawning  day  enters  the  quickened  mind ; 
a  voice  commanding  humanity  to  look  forward 
and  to  go  forward;  a  prophet  who  bids  men 
seek  their  golden  age  in  the  future,  not  in  the 
past. 


CHAPTER   II. 

THE   EVOLUTION   OF  THE  BIBLE. 

According  to  Max  Miiller,  religion  consists 
in  "the  perception  of  the  Infinite  under  such 
manifestations  as  are  able  to  influence  the  moral 
character  of  man."  According  to  Professor  Le 
Conte,  evolution  is  "continuous  progressive 
change,  according  to  certain  laws,  and  by  means 
of  resident  forces.''  According  to  the  evolution- 
ary theory,  therefore,  revelation  will  be  such  a 
manifestation  of  the  Infinite  as  is  able  to  influ- 
ence the  moral  character  of  man,  made,  however, 
not  perfect  and  complete  at  the  outset,  but  in  a 
series  of  continuous  progressive  changes,  accord- 
ing to  certain  laws,  and  by  means  of  a  spiritual 
force  or  forces  in  the  men  who  are  themselves 
the  media  of  this  revelation.  The  current  ques- 
tions in  Christian  circles  respecting  the  Bible 
may  all  be  reduced  to  the  question  whether  rev- 
elation is  thus  a  progressive  revelation,  with 
those  incompletenesses  and  im23erfections  which 
are  necessary  accompaniments  of  progression,  or 
whether  it  is  a  complete  and  perfect  revelation, 
unchanging  and  unchangeable  from  the  outset, 


THE  EVOLUTION  OF  THE  BIBLE.         27 

and  like  its  divine  Author,  the  same  yesterday, 
to-day,  and  forever. 

The  question,  therefore,  to  which  I  invite  the 
reader's  attention  in  this  chapter  is  not  whether 
the  Bible  is  an  inspired  literature  and  contains 
a  divine  revelation.  To  deny  this  is  to  deny 
Christianity.  He  who  disbelieves  in  the  Bible 
as  the  text-book  of  revealed  religion  is  not  in 
his  belief  a  Christian,  whatever  he  may  be  in  his 
character.  He  is,  properly  speaking,  a  theist. 
The  Bible  has  a  unique  place  in  the  literature 
of  the  world.  It  has  comforted  the  sorrowing, 
inspired  the  apathetic,  guided  the  perplexed, 
strengthened  the  weak,  and  called  to  practical 
repentance  the  sinful  and  the  erring.  No  the- 
ology can  be  true  which  takes  this  Bible  out  of 
human  life,  weakens  its  sacred  authority,  makes 
it  less  valuable  as  an  inspiration  and  a  guide, 
reduces  it  to  the  commonplaces  of  the  world's 
thought,  and  degrades  it  and  deprives  it  of  its 
life-giving  power.  There  is  no  better  test  of 
spiritual  truth  than  spiritual  f ruitf ulness ;  and  in 
making  our  estimate  of  truth  and  falsehood  we 
must  take  into  account  the  spiritual  as  well  as 
the  logical  faculties,  the  testimony  of  the  intui- 
tions as  well  as  the  conclusions  of  the  judgment. 

But,  on  the  other  hand,  the  question  is  not 
whether  this  Bible  has  in  it  some  incidental  in- 
accuracies and  imperfections :  whether  some  of  its 


28      THE  EVOLUTION  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 

dates  are  wrong,  some  of  its  words  and  phrases 
mistranslated,  miscopied,  or  even  originally  mis- 
chosen  ;  whether  there  are  differences  in  detail  in 
its  parallel  narratives,  showing  an  absence  of 
absolute  and  minute  accuracy;  whether  there 
are,  as  a  conservative  theologian  has  conceived 
that  there  are,  some  specks  of  sandstone  in  the 
marble.  The  question  is  far  more  fundamental. 
How  are  we  to  regard  the  Bible  ?  How  are  we 
to  regard  inspiration  and  revelation?  Are  we 
to  think  that  God  has  given  us  a  perfect  and 
infallible  standard,  something  complete  and  per- 
fect from  its  inception;  or  are  we  to  think  that 
he  has  given  us  a  literature  in  which  the  mani- 
festations of  his  presence  and  power  are  unique, 
but  in  which  they  are  made  through  men  of  like 
passions  as  we  ourselves  are,  men  who  saw  truth 
as  in  a  glass  darkly,  men  who  knew  in  part 
and  prophesied  in  part?  Is  the  Bible  like  the 
Northern  Lights,  flashing  instantly  and  without 
premonition  upon  a  world  of  darkness,  and  set- 
ting all  the  heavens  aglow  with  its  resplendent 
fire ;  or  is  it  like  the  sunrise,  silvering  first  the 
mountain  tops,  gradually  creeping  down  the  val- 
leys, a  progressive  light,  mingled  with,  yet  grad- 
ually vanquishing  the  darkness,  its  pathway  like 
that  of  the  righteous  man,  growing  brighter  and 
brighter  unto  the  perfect  day  ? 

The  first  of  these  opinions  has  been  very  gen- 


THE  EVOLUTION  OF  THE  BIBLE.  29 

erally  held  in  the  churches  born  of  the  Refor- 
mation. The  Reformers  repudiated  an  infal- 
lible church,  and,  when  asked  what  authority 
they  would  substitute  therefor,  replied,  "The 
Bible."  They  did  not  indeed  at  first  claim  for 
the  Bible,  as  we  have  it  to-day,  absolute  iner- 
rancy. Luther  almost  contemptuously  repudi- 
ated the  Epistle  of  James  as  an  epistle  of  straw.  ^ 
But  as  the  battle  between  the  Roman  Catholic 
and  the  Protestant  churches  went  on,  the  Pro- 
testant theologians,  for  polemical  reasons,  laid 
more  and  more  stress  on  the  authority  of  Scrip- 
ture, and  the  doctrine  of  infallible  inspiration 
crept  into  the  church.  With  it  came  the  gen- 
eral claim  for  the  Bible  that  it  is  an  absolute 
and  an  infallible  authority  upon  all  subjects,  — 
science,  chronology,  history,  literature,  rhetoric, 
theology.  The  revelation  was  regarded,  more  or 
less  consistently,  as  a  complete  and  perfect  rev- 
elation given  to  Moses  at  the  outset.  Pagan 
beliefs  and  institutions  parallel  to  those  of  the 
Mosaic  dispensation  were  supposed  to  have  been 
borrowed  from  Biblical  revelation.  The  incon- 
sistency between  the  practices  of  Israel  and  this 
earlier  revelation  was  regarded  as  degeneracy  and 
apostasy,  incidents  of  the  Fall.  The  object  of 
the  prophets  was  supposed  to  be  to  reform  and 

1  See,  for  further  illustration,  Hagenbach's  H^i's^ory  of  Chris- 
tian Doctrine,  sec.  243,  note  1. 


30      THE  EVOLUTION  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 

restore  the  original  revelation.  And  the  New 
Testament  was  interpreted,  not  as  an  addition 
and  enlargement  to  the  spiritual  knowledge  of 
the  world,  but  only  as  a  revelation  in  a  new 
form  of  the  truth  which  the  world  had  received 
in  the  Garden  of  Eden. 

No  one  any  longer  really  believes  this;  but 
a  great  many  attempt  to  believe  it,  or  to  make 
themselves  believe  that  they  believe  it.  Thus 
fragments  of  this  belief  still  remain  in  an  incon- 
gruous no-system  of  theology,  fragments  which 
it  is  well-nigh  impossible  to  put  together  in  a 
connected  and  coherent  whole.  As  a  system  it 
cannot  be  described,  but  the  fragments  which 
remain  of  it,  found  in  different  systems,  may  be 
sketched  by  way  of  illustration. 

The  man,  then,  who  holds,  or  thinks  he  holds, 
or  desires  to  hold  this  conception  of  the  Bible, 
as  a  complete,  perfect,  and  flawless  revelation  of 
divine  truth  from  the  beginning,  finds  in  its 
first  chapter  a  history  of  the  creation  which  he 
regards  as  a  divine  revelation  of  the  mode  of  the 
world's  formation.  This  chapter  declares  that 
the  world  was  made  in  six  days  by  successive 
utterances  of  God,  and  that  the  writer  may 
leave  no  doubt  as  to  his  meaning,  he  declares  that 
evening  and  morning  made  each  successive  day. 
But  our  devout  reader,  who  has  begun  by  believ- 
ing the  Bible  to  be  an  authority  on  natural  sci- 


THE  EVOLUTION  OF  THE  BIBLE.         31 

ence,  abandons  the  earlier  belief  that  the  world 
was  made  by  divine  utterances  in  six  days,  be- 
cause all  geological  science  establishes  the  con- 
trary beyond  perad venture.  First,  he  conceives 
that  day  means  an  epoch,  and  cites  in  support  of 
his  conclusion  the  statement  that  a  thousand  years 
are  with  the  Lord  as  one  day ;  then  he  supposes 
with  Hugh  Miller  that  the  revelation  was  not 
according  to  reality,  but  according  to  appear- 
ance, that  the  process  of  creation  was  seen  in 
a  vision  by  the  inspired  prophet  ;  and  finally 
he  modifies  his  original  theory  respecting  the 
supreme  authority  of  the  Bible  by  concluding 
that  it  is  not  an  authority  in  matters  of  natural 
science.  He  reads  the  story  of  man's  creation 
and  believes  that  he  is  infallibly  taught  that  man 
was  made  out  of  the  dust  by  a  sculptor's  process, 
six  thousand  years  ago.  Anthropology  demon- 
strates to  him  that  man  has  been  upon  the  earth 
a  considerably  longer  time  than  this,  and  he 
concludes,  after  ruminating  upon  this  fact,  that 
the  Biblical  chronology  was  introduced  into  the 
Bible  in  the  time  of  Archbishop  Usher,  in  the 
sixteenth  century,  and  is  not  a  part  of  its  infal- 
lible revelation.  He  reads  the  story  of  the  Fall, 
with  its  tree,  the  fruit  of  which  was  to  make  man 
immortal,  with  its  weedless  garden,  and  its  talk- 
ing serpent,  and  its  death  following  sin.  He 
learns  again  from  science  that  death  has  existed 


32      THE  EVOLUTION  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 

in  the  world  from  the  beginning,  and  must  have 
existed,  that  the  immortality  of  man's  body  is  an 
impossible  conception,  and  that  all  science  more 
and  more  tends  to  the  conclusion  that  man  as  an 
animal  has  been  developed  by  gradual  processes 
from  a  lower  animal  condition.  As  in  defend- 
ing his  conception  of  a  revelation  perfect  and 
complete  from  the  beginning  he  first  fought  geo- 
logy as  irreligious,  and  then  the  antiquity  of 
man  as  irreligious,  so  now  he  is  fighting  the  doc- 
trine of  evolution  as  irreligious,  not  knowing  to 
what  new  position  he  can  retreat  if  his  belief 
in  the  historical  verity  of  the  Fall  is  taken  from 
him. 

He  reads  on  in  his  Bible,  and  finds  that  the 
political  laws  of  this  book  gave  allowance  to,  if 
not  direct  approval  of,  polygamy  and  slavery.  If 
he  be  a  Mormon,  he  avails  himself  of  its  author- 
ity and  pronounces  polygamy  a  patriarchal  insti- 
tution; if  he  be  a  slave-holder,  he  pronounces 
slavery  to  be  a  patriarchal  institution ;  but  if  he 
be  neither,  he  concedes  that  these  laws,  giving  an 
apparent  sanction  to  lust  and  covetousness,  are 
not  divine  ideals,  but  a  concession  to  the  infirm- 
ity of  human  flesh.  In  support  of  this  position 
he  cites  Christ,  but  he  fails  to  see  that  he  has 
already  conceded  that  the  revelation  is  not  the 
perfect  and  flawless  manifestation  of  a  divine 
ideal  which  at  first  he  thought  it  to  be. 


THE  EVOLUTION  OF  THE  BIBLE.         33 

It  is  quite  possible  that  he  passes  by  the  ec- 
clesiastical laws  altogether,  but  if  he  studies  them 
he  does  not  comply  with  them.  The  early  rev- 
elation required  circumcision;  but  his  children 
are  not  circumcised.  It  required  worship  to  be 
performed  only  in  the  Temple,  or  chiefly  there, 
but  he  rightly  believes  one  place  to  be  as  sacred 
as  another.  It  forbade  all  conduct  of  public  wor- 
ship except  by  the  children  of  a  single  specified 
parentage,  but  in  his  church  the  conduct  of  pub- 
lic worship  is  thrown  open  to  any  man  proj^erly 
equipped,  spiritually  and  intellectually,  for  the 
performance  of  that  function.  It  provided  as  a 
form  of  worship  a  system  of  sacrifices ;  the  bleat- 
ing of  sheep  and  the  lowing  of  cattle  mingled  in 
the  Temple  with  the  chants  of  praise,  and  rivers 
of  blood  flowed  underground  from  the  sanctuary ; 
but  in  his  church  there  are  neither  cattle,  sheep, 
nor  doves.  And  yet  he  thinks,  or  thinks  that 
he  thinks,  that  originally  this  ecclesiastical  cult 
was  framed  in  heaven  and  given  to  man,  and  he 
endeavors  to  preserve,  or  imagines  that  he  en- 
deavors to  preserve,  some  traces  of  it  in  his  own 
worship.  Baptism  has  taken  the  place  of  cir- 
cumcision ;  in  his  prayers,  though  nowhere  else, 
he  calls  his  meeting-house  a  temple;  perhaps  he 
calls  his  minister  a  priest,  or,  if  Protestant  pre- 
judices do  not  permit  this,  he  confers  upon  him 
quasi   priestly  functions,    which  grow  loss   and 


34      THE  EVOLUTION  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 

less,  until  at  last  the  only  clerical  act  which  a 
layman  may  not  perform  is  to  pronounce  a  bene- 
diction, —  as  though  a  prayer  for  the  blessing  of 
the  Father,  the  Son,  and  the  Holy  Spirit  on  a  con- 
gregation could  be  asked  only  by  an  ordained 
clergyman.  His  communion  table  he  calls  an 
altar;  possibly  he  even  preserves  in  the  service 
thereat,  in  the  unbloody  sacrifice  of  the  Mass,  an 
attenuated  form  of  the  Jewish  sacrificial  system ; 
or,  banishing  it  from  worship  altogether,  still 
clings  to  it  tenaciously  by  insisting  that  in  the 
creed  the  word  sacrificial  shall  be  coupled  with 
the  atonement.  The  evolutionist  recognizes  a 
spiritual  continuity  between  the  past  and  the 
present,  and  in  the  earlier  forms  a  primitive  ex- 
pression of  that  life  of  God  in  the  soul  of  man 
which  survives  all  changes  of  ritual ;  but  in  spite 
of  specious  arguments,  any  man  of  common 
sense,  putting  side  by  side  the  Jewish  ritual  and 
the  Puritan  forms  of  worship,  instantly  perceives 
that  the  modern  service  is  by  no  means  conformed 
to  the  earlier  one  as  to  a  comj^lete,  perfect,  au- 
thoritative, and  final  revelation. 

Perhaps  this  student  finally  concludes  that, 
as  the  Bible  is  not  a  final  authority  in  science,  so 
the  Mosaic  law  is  not  a  final  authority  in  ecclesi- 
asticism.  Perhaps,  though  he  can  find  no  author- 
ity for  it  whatever  in  either  Christ  or  Paul,  he 
assumes  that  the  New  Testament  has  abolished 


THE  EVOLUTION  OF  THE  BIBLE.  35 

the  ceremonial  law,  not  one  jot  or  tittle  of  which 
Christ  declared  should  pass  away  until  all  be  ful- 
filled. He  makes  his  stand  upon  the  decla- 
ration that  the  moral  laws  of  the  Old  Testament 
constitute  the  final  and  authoritative  word  of  God 
upon  the  subject  of  the  moral  life.  But  even  to 
those  moral  laws  he  pays  no  literal  obedience. 
Unless  he  is  a  Seventh  Day  Christian,  he  works 
on  the  seventh  day  with  the  rest  of  his  neighbors, 
and  takes  another  day  in  the  week  for  his  rest 
and  his  religious  observances.  In  the  chancel  of 
his  church,  by  the  side  of  the  law,  "Thou  shalt 
not  make  unto  thee  any  graven  image,"  he  puts 
without  hesitation  the  bas-relief  of  the  last  pas- 
tor. He  finds  himself  involved  by  his  theory  in 
moral  perplexities  from  which  he  endeavors  in 
vain  to  escape.  He  reads  the  story  miscalled  the 
Sacrifice  of  Isaac,  and  no  argiunent  can  make  it 
seem  to  him  really  possible  that  God,  who  has 
implanted  in  every  father's  heart  the  command 
to  protect  his  child,  uttered  to  one  father  the 
command  to  kill  his  child.  He  reads  in  some 
imprecatory  Psalm  the  prayer  of  the  Psahnist 
that  God  will  not  forgive  Israel's  enemies;  he 
reads  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount,  with  its  com- 
mand from  the  Master  to  love  our  enemies,  and 
pray  for  those  that  injure  us ;  and  no  exegetical 
skill  can  make  the  two  morally  harmonious. 
How  can  the  first  be  a  complete  and  perfect 


36      THE  EVOLUTION  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 

transcription  of  the  divine  will,  since  the  second 
flatly  contradicts  it? 

There  is  danger  in  skepticism,  but  there  is 
greater  danger  in  shams ;  in  making-believe  be- 
lieve ;  in  trying  to  think  something  which  is  not 
really  thinkable,  or  at  least  is  not  really  thought ; 
in  shutting  our  ears  and  our  hearts  to  the  truth 
which  is  knocking  for  admission.  The  Master 
never  condemned  honest  doubt,  but  shams  of  all 
sorts  were  odious  to  him.  He  denounced  the 
Pharisees  who  for  a  pretense  made  long  prayers ; 
he  put  out  of  the  room  the  hired  mourners  who 
simulated  grief;  and  the  dissimulating  Judas 
Iscariot  he  bade  depart,  before  he  would  com- 
mence his  last  sacred  conference  with  his  disci- 
ples. He  who  was  the  Truth  could  not  endure 
a  lie.  Let  us  be  true  with  ourselves,  come  what 
may  to  our  theology. 

An  infallible  book  is  an  impossible  concep- 
tion, and  to-day  no  one  really  believes  that  our 
present  Bible  is  such  a  book.  Theologians 
maintain,  indeed,  that  the  original  utterances  of 
the  original  writers  were  infallibly  accurate,  but 
we  have  not  the  original  utterances  of  the  origi- 
nal writers.  An  infallible  book  is  a  book  which 
without  any  error  whatever  conveys  truth  from 
one  mind  to  another  mind.  In  order  that  the 
Bible  should  be  infallible,  the  original  writers 
must  have  been  infallibly  informed   as  to  the 


THE  EVOLUTION  OF  THE  BIBLE.         37 

truth ;  they  must  have  been  able  to  express  it  in- 
fallibly; they  must  have  had  a  language  which 
was  an  infallible  vehicle  for  the  communication 
of  their  thoughts ;  after  their  death  their  manu- 
scripts must  have  been  infallibly  preserved  and 
infallibly  copied;  when  translation  became  nec- 
essary, the  translators  must  have  been  able  to 
give  an  infallible  translation;  and  finally,  the 
men  who  receive  the  book  must  be  able  infallibly 
to  apprehend  what  was  thus  infallibly  understood 
by  the  writers,  infallibly  communicated  by  them, 
infallibly  preserved,  infallibly  copied,  and  infal- 
libly translated.  Nothing  less  than  this  combi- 
nation would  give  us  to-day  an  infallible  Bible ; 
and  no  one  believes  that  this^  infallible  combi- 
nation exists.  Whether  the  original  writers  in- 
fallibly understood  the  truth,  or  not,  they  had 
no  infallible  vehicle  of  communicating  it:  their 
manuscripts  were  not  infallibly  preserved  or  cop- 
ied or  translated;  and  the  sectarian  differences 
which  exist  to-day  afford  an  absolute  demonstra- 
tion that  we  are  not  able  infallibly  to  imderstand 
their  meaning. 

God  has  not  given  us  an  infallible  standard, 
but  something  far  better,  namely,  a  divine  reve- 
lation. There  is  one  relatively  infallible  book 
in  the  world,  —  Euclid's  Geometry.  It  was 
written  years  before  Christ,  and,  so  far  as  I 
know,  no  material  errors  have  been  found  in  it 


38      THE  EVOLUTION  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 

from  that  day  to  this ;  but  it  has  exerted  no  such 
influence  upon  mankind  as  the  Bible.  It  is  in- 
errant,  but  it  is  not  divine.  The  value  of  the 
Bible  consists  not  in  the  supposed  fact  that  there 
are  no  errors  in  it,  but  in  this,  that  its  books  have 
been  written  by  men  who,  with  various  degrees 
of  clearness  of  vision,  saw  God  in  his  world  of 
nature  and  in  his  world  of  men,  and  were  able  to 
make  others  see  him.  It  is  God  —  God's  truth, 
God's  life  —  revealed  in  and  imparted  by  the 
Bible  which  makes  it  a  sacred  book;  and  that 
impartation  is  all  the  better,  and  that  revelation 
is  all  the  clearer,  because  men  were  the  media 
through  which  the  life  was  imparted  and  the  rev- 
elation was  made,  —  men  who  saw  the  truth,  as 
we  see  it,  in  a  glass  darkly,  and  who  knew  it,  as 
we  know  it,  in  part  only. 

As  a  collection  of  literature,  the  Bible  is  un- 
questionably the  result  of  evolution.  It  is  a 
library  of  sixty-six  different  books,  written  by 
between  fifty  and  sixty  different  writers.  If  we 
assume,  as  I  think  we  may,  that  the  first  writ- 
ings of  the  canon  ^  date  from  the  age  of  Moses  and 
the  last  from  the  close  of  the  first  century,  this 

^  I  do  not  say  books.  Into  the  vexed  question  of  tlie  age  of 
the  Pentateuch  I  do  not  enter.  But  I  do  not  doubt  that  it  con- 
tains writing's  — the  Ten  Commandments,  for  example,  and  in 
Diy  judgment  much  more  —  which  date  from  the  days  of 
Moses. 


THE  EVOLUTION  OF  THE  BIBLE.         39 

volume  is  the  product  of  about  sixteen  centuries 
of  national  life.  During  these  centuries,  the 
religious  teachers  of  Israel,  the  men  who  had 
in  themselves  that  life  of  God  which  is  the  es- 
sence of  religion,  who  perceived  in  themselves 
and  in  life  such  a  manifestation  of  the  Infinite 
as  produced  a  real  change  in  their  moral  nature, 
instructed  the  people  concerning  this  life,  occa- 
sionally by  writing,  generally  by  speech.  Parts 
of  what  they  spoke  were  by  others  reduced  to 
writing;  parts  of  what  were  thus  reduced  to 
writing  were  preserved ;  parts  of  what  were  thus 
preserved  were  incorporated  in  what  is  known 
as  the  Bible.  This  incorporation  in  a  single 
volume  was  not  effected  at  a  definite  date  ^  nor 
by  any  well-defined  authority.  The  process  by 
which  the  books,  both  of  the  Old  Testament 
and  of  the  New  Testament,  were  selected  was  a 
gradual  one.  The  canon  of  the  Old  Testament, 
substantially  as  we  now  possess  it,  existed  at 
the  time  of  the  translation  of  the  Hebrew  into 
the  Septuagint,  about  the  third  century  before 
Christ.  But  even  to-day  the  Christian  church  is 
divided  upon  the  question  what  constitutes  that 
canon,  Roman  Catholic  theologians,   and  some 

^  "  For  the  opinion,  often  met  with  in  modern  books,  that  the 
canon  of  the  Old  Testament  was  closed  by  Ezra  or  in  Ezra's 
time,  there  is  no  foundation  in  antiquity  whatever."  —  Canon 
Driver,  Introduction  to  the  Old  Testament,  p.  xxxi. 


40      THE  EVOLUTION  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 

Protestant  theologians,  placing  as  high  a  value 
on  the  aj)ocryphal  books  as  on  some  of  the  so- 
called  canonical  books. 

The  New  Testament  grew  in  a  similar  manner. 
At  first  the  infant  church  depended  on  oral  re- 
ports for  a  knowledge  of  the  sayings  and  the  acts 
of  Christ.  These  were  in  time  reduced  to  writ- 
ing by  different  biographers.  The  apostles  from 
time  to  time  wrote  letters  of  counsel  to  the  dif- 
ferent churches.  These  biographies  and  these 
letters  were  interchanged.  Gradually  the  larger 
churches  acquired  a  collection  of  these  fragmen- 
tary writings.  The  first  approximation  to  a 
canonical  collection  of  these  books  dates  from 
the  second  century  of  the  Christian  era,  but  it 
does  not  include  all  the  books  in  the  present 
canon,  which  did  not  assume  its  present  form  till 
the  close  of  the  fourth  century ;  nor  is  it  possible 
to  state  exactly  when  or  by  whom  the  various 
books  were  first  collected  and  formally  recognized 
as  one  collection.  Thus,  both  the  Old  Testament 
and  the  New  Testament  were  constructed  by  a 
process  of  natural  selection.  As  collections  of 
literature  both  can  be  described,  in  terms  of  an 
evolutionary  philosophy,  as  the  result  of  a  prac- 
tical process  of  selection  and  elimination,  or  as 
"a  struggle  for  existence  and  a  survival  of  the 
fittest." 

As  the  collection  of  books  which  constitutes 


THE  EVOLUTION  OF  THE  BIBLE.         41 

the  Bible  was  formed  by  a  gradual  process,  so 
a  gradual  development  is  to  be  seen  in  the  teach- 
ing contained  in  the  collection.  The  later  books 
present  higher  ideals  of  character  and  conduct, 
clearer  and  nobler  conceptions  of  God,  more 
catholic  and  more  positive  interpretations  of  his 
redeeming  work  in  the  world,  than  the  earlier 
books.  The  revelation  is  a  progressive  revela- 
tion. The  forms,  whether  of  religious  thought, 
of  public  worship,  or  of  church  order  and  organ- 
ization, in  the  Bible  are  not  the  same;  those  of 
the  later  ages  have  growai  out  of  those  of  the 
former  ages,  and  are  superior  to  them.  In  brief, 
the  Bible  is  the  history  of  the  development  of 
the  life  of  God  in  the  life  of  a  peculiar  people ; 
and  it  traces  the  development  of  that  life  from 
lower  to  higher  and  from  simpler  to  more  com- 
plex forms.  It  is  the  record  of  a  spiritual  evolu- 
tion ;  of  a  clearer  and  ever  clearer  perception  of 
the  Infinite,  under  such  manifestations  as  tend  to 
produce  a  continually  higher  and  stronger  moral 
influence  on  the  character  and  conduct  of  men. 
We  can  most  easily  trace  this  process  of  evolu- 
tion by  considering  the  Bible  in  four  aspects,  as 
a  volmne  of  history,  of  laws,  of  ethics,  and  of 
theology. 

1.  The  book  of  Genesis  is  a  collection  of  nar- 
ratives of  prehistoric  events.  No  one  supposes 
that  aU  of  it  was  written  by  contemporaneous 


42      THE  EVOLUTION  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 

authors.  Adam  is  not  credited  with  the  author- 
ship of  the  chapter  about  Eden,  nor  Noah  with 
the  story  of  the  Dekige,  nor  Abraham  with  the 
record  of  the  first  great  migration.  The  un- 
known author  or  editor  of  Genesis  does  not  tell 
us  how  he  obtained  his  knowledge  of  these  events. 
He  does  not  claim  that  the  facts  were  revealed  to 
him;  and  no  later  Biblical  writer  makes  this 
claim  for  him.  The  natural  presumption  there- 
fore is  that  he  obtained  his  information,  as  most 
writers  obtain  their  information  concerning 
events  outside  their  own  observation,  by  investi- 
gation, inquiry,  and  collation  of  preexisting  ma- 
terial. Luke  tells  us  how  he  obtained  his  know- 
ledge of  the  facts  which  make  up  his  biography 
of  Christ :  he  obtained  them  from  others,  who 
were  eye-witnesses  and  ministers  of  the  word. 
Presumptively,  the  writer  of  Genesis  obtained 
his  knowledge  in  a  similar  way,  and  this  pre- 
sumption is  greatly  strengthened  by  two  circum- 
stances. In  the  first  place,  a  careful  analysis  of 
the  book  makes  it  clear  that  it  is  composed  of 
two  or  more  narratives  which  have  been  put  to- 
gether by  an  editor.  The  book  of  Genesis  is  a 
Harmony  analogous  to  the  Harmonies  of  the 
Gospel,  which  have  been  composed  at  various 
times  by  piecing  together  in  a  continuous  nar- 
rative the  Four  Gospels.  In  the  second  place, 
narratives  of  the  Creation,  the  Temptation  and 


THE  EVOLUTION  OF  THE  BIBLE.         43 

Fall,  and  the  Deluge,  in  important  respects  an- 
alogous to  those  in  Genesis,  are  found  in  early 
traditions,  some  of  them  apparently  older  than 
even  the  most  remote  date  assigned  to  Genesis 
by  any  scholar.  The  Hebrew  prophet's  account 
is  unique,  not  because  of  the  events  narrated, 
but  because  of  the  spirit  in  which  he  has  nar- 
rated them.  He  has  taken  the  material  as  he 
found  it,  and  with  that  material  has  re-written 
the  early  history  of  the  world,  and  written  God 
into  it. 

"The  first  chapters  of  Genesis,"  says  Lenor- 
mant,  "constitute  a  'Book  of  the  Beginnings,' 
in  accordance  with  the  stories  handed  down  in 
Israel  from  generation  to  genemtion,  ever  since 
the  times  of  the  Patriarchs,  which  in  all  its 
essential  affirmations  is  parallel  with  the  state- 
ments of  the  sacred  books  from  the  banks  of  the 
Euphrates  and  Tigris.  But,  if  this  is  so,  I  shall 
perhaps  be  asked.  Where  then  do  you  find  the 
divine  inspiration  of  the  writers  who  made  this 
archaeology,  that  supernatural  help  by  which,  as 
a  Christian,  you  must  believe  them  to  have  been 
guided?  Where?  In  the  absolutely  new  spirit 
which  animates  their  narration,  even  though  the 
form  of  it  may  have  remained  in  almost  every 
respect  the  same  as  among  the  neighboring  na- 
tions. It  is  the  same  narrative,  and  in  it  the 
same  episodes  succeed  one  another  in  like  man- 


44      THE  EVOLUTION  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 

ner ;  and  yet  one  would  be  blind  not  to  perceive 
that  tlie  signification  lias  become  altogether  dif- 
ferent. The  exuberant  polytheism  which  en- 
cumbers these  stories  among  the  Chaldseans  has 
been  carefully  eliminated,  to  give  place  to  the 
severest  monotheism.  What  formerly  expressed 
naturalistic  conceptions  of  a  singular  grossness, 
here  becomes  the  garb  of  moral  trutlis  of  the 
most  exalted  and  most  purely  spiritual  order. 
The  essential  features  of  the  form  of  the  tradi- 
tion have  been  preserved,  and  yet  between  the 
Bible  and  the  sacred  books  of  Chaldaea  there  is 
all  the  distance  of  one  of  the  most  tremendous 
revolutions  which  have  ever  been  effected  in 
human  beliefs.  Herein  consists  the  miracle, 
and  it  is  none  the  less  amazing  for  being  trans- 
posed. Others  may  seek  to  explain  this  by  the 
simple,  natural  progress  of  the  conscience  of 
humanity;  for  myself,  I  do  not  hesitate  to  find 
in  it  the  effect  of  a  supernatural  intervention  of 
divine  Providence,  and  I  bow  before  the  God 
who  inspired  the  Law  and  the  Prophets."^ 

The  Christian  evolutionist,  with  Lenormant, 
does  not  suppose  that  the  facts  narrated  in  the 
book  of  Genesis  were  supernaturally  revealed  to 
the  historian.  He  finds  for  the  writer  no  such 
claim  anywhere  in  the  Bible ;  and  he  sees  no  rea- 

^  Beginnings  of  History,  by  Francis   Lenormant.     Charles 
Scribner's  Sons.     Preface,  pp.  xvi,  xvii. 


THE  EVOLUTION  OF  THE  BIBLE.         45 

son  to  make  such  a  claim  in  the  writer's  behalf. 
He  supposes  that  a  devout  soul,  who  had  in  him- 
self the  power  of  spiritual  perception,  and  who 
saw  God  in  his  world,  set  himself  to  write  the 
beginnings  of  history  in  such  a  way  that  those 
who  were  familiar  with  these  prehistoric  legends 
should  hereafter  see  God  to  have  been  with  the 
race  from  the  beginning.  He  indicates  this  pur- 
pose in  the  opening  sentences  of  his  narrative : 
"In  the  beginning  God  created  the  heavens  and 
the  earth."  The  material  universe,  which  the 
pagan  nations  deified  and  worshiped,  he  per- 
ceives to  be  the  creation  of  a  divine  mind,  and 
he  so  represents  it.  That  depersonification  of 
nature  which  Greek  philosophy  did  not  accom- 
plish till  centuries  later  confronts  us  in  the  open- 
ing chapter  of  Genesis.  Other  religions  taught 
man  to  fear  natural  phenomena  as  gods.  This 
unknown  prophet  teaches  that  God  made  the 
world  and  all  it  contains,  for  man's  habitation 
and  use,  and  made  man  to  exercise  a  divine  con- 
trol over  it.  That  God  is  the  Creator  of  the 
world,  that  man  is  God's  child,  and  is  made  in 
God's  likeness,  that  sin  is  disobedience  to  God, 
that  penalty  is  separation  from  God  and  loss  of ' 
the  life  of  God,  that  God  began  redemption  on 
the  day  in  which  man  began  to  sin,  — these  are 
the  lessons  of  the  first  chapter  of  Genesis :  and 
they  are  equally  valuable  whether  one  believes  or 


46      THE  EVOLUTION  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 

disbelieves  that  the  description  of  creation  in  the 
first  chapter  of  Genesis  is  scientifically  accurate, 
or  the  account  of  the  Garden  of  Eden  in  the 
third  chapter  of  Genesis,  with  its  miraculous  life- 
giving  fruit  and  its  talking  serpent,  is  histori- 
cally accurate.  The  lessons  which  the  divinely 
inspired  prophet  found  in  life  and  wrote  into  the 
already  current  history  of  a  prehistoric  age  are 
alike  inspired,  whether  the  scientific  and  histori- 
cal materials  were  revelations  or  traditions. 

This  perception  of  God  in  history  character- 
izes all  the  historic  records  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment. Abraham  leaves  the  land  of  his  nativity 
that  he  may  find  God  and  may  worship  him. 
Joseph  illustrates  faith  in  God  alike  in  the  dun- 
geon and  in  the  palace.  God  proves  himself  in 
the  plagues  of  Egypt  above  all  the  gods,  and 
calls  his  people  out  of  bondage  that  they  may 
become  the  people  of  God.  God  fights  for  them 
and  with  them ;  their  victories  are  his  victories, 
and  their  land  the  land  which  he  has  given 
them.  And  in  all  the  subsequent  history,  from 
the  colonial  days  through  the  days  of  imperial 
splendor,  later  division  and  degradation,  and 
final  exile  and  captivity,  we  have  not  the  annals 
of  a  great  nation,  not  the  glorification  of  great 
leaders  and  the  memorial  of  splendid  achieve- 
ments, but  history  written  by  men  who  saw  God 
in  history,  and  wrote  that  they  might  enable  us 


THE  EVOLUTION  OF  THE  BIBLE.         47 

also  to  see  him,  as  a  God  of  righteousness.  It  is 
all  written  to  elucidate  the  principle  that  "right- 
eousness exalteth  a  nation,  but  sin  is  a  reproach 
to  any  people."  In  this  is  the  divineness  of  the 
Bible  history :  not  in  the  accuracy  of  its  chrono- 
logical and  historical  details,  but  in  its  percep- 
tion of  the  spiritual  meaning  of  life's  great 
drama.  That  meaning  is  not  really  less  in  the 
history  of  the  United  States  than  in  that  of  Pal- 
estine ;  but  the  Hebrew  historians  perceived  that 
meaning,  and  so  told  the  story  that  all  readers 
perceive  it.  This  constitutes  the  essential  differ- 
ence between  the  Hebrew  Scriptures  and  the 
modern  press.  In  the  Hebrew  Bible  is  a  per- 
ception of  the  Infinite  manifesting  himself  in 
the  national  life ;  in  the  American  newspaper, 
for  the  most  part,  only  a  perception  of  party 
policies,  politicians,  strifes,  defeats,  and  victo- 
ries. 

2.  As  Biblical  history  traces  the  development 
of  the  divine  life  in  the  nation,  so  Biblical  laws 
exemplify  the  development  of  that  life.  The 
Levitical  law  is  not  a  revealed  code  of  worship 
to  be  literally  obeyed  by  the  Jews  and  symboli- 
cally obeyed  by  other  peoples.  Circumcision, 
temple,  priesthood,  altar,  sacrifices,  did  not  orig- 
inate with  Moses,  and  were  not  confined  to  the 
Jewish  people.  The  great  lawgiver  finds  these 
forms  of  the  religious  life  in  the  surrounding 


48      THE  EVOLUTION  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 

nations.     He  accepts  them,  gives  them  a  new 
meaning,  and  adapts  them  to  a  higher  and  better 
life.     A  movable  tent  will  serve  as  well  for  wor- 
ship as  a   splendid  Temple;  for  wherever  we 
gather  to  meet  God  in  reverence  and  holy  desire, 
there  he  is.     The  nation  must  have  a  priesthood, 
for  to  abolish  it  at  this  epoch  in  human  history 
would  be  to  abolish  all  religious  service  and  all 
that  feeds  and  fosters  the  religious  life;  but  the 
priesthood  are  deprived  of  that  power  which  in 
all  lands  and  all  ages  has  made  it  dangerous. 
The  priests  have  no  share  in  the  ownership  of 
the  land ;  and  are  made  wholly  dependent  upon 
the  voluntary  offerings  of  the  people,  —  volun- 
tary, I  say,  for  though  the  amount  to  be  con- 
tributed is    definitely  determined,  there  is   no 
process  provided  for  enforcing  it  as  a  tax.     The 
priestly  claim  to  be  the  sole  teachers  of  the  peo- 
ple is  repudiated,  and  the  teaching  function  is 
throughout  Israel's  history  left  to  be  exercised 
mainly  by  a  wholly  unorganized  and  unofficial 
body  of  prophets.     Altars  are  prohibited ;  one 
only  may  be  built ;  and  this  of  the  simplest  con- 
struction.    "An  altar  of  earth  shalt  thou  make 
unto  me;  .   .   .  and  if  thou  wilt  make  me  an 
altar  of  stone,  thou  shalt  not  build  it  of  hewn 
stone."     Sacrifices  are  allowed;  but  the  spirit 
which  in  pagan  lands  sacrificed  prisoners,  and 
offered  hundreds  of  cattle  and  sheep  is  exorcised. 


THE  EVOLUTION  OF  THE  BIBLE.         49 

Human  sacrifice  is  forbidden;  sacrifices  are 
never  measured  by  their  magnitude  or  value.  A 
single  bidlock,  or  a  lamb,  or  a  pigeon,  or  even 
a  sheaf  of  wheat,  —  anything  will  do,  so  that  it 
be  not  some  defective  thing,  of  no  use  for  other 
purposes,  and  so  that  it  be  offered  in  simplicity 
and  sincerity.  Any  lawyer,  subjecting  the  Le- 
vi tical  statutes  to  a  lawyer's  examination,  would 
not  hesitate  to  declare  that  they  are  regulative, 
not  mandatory,  that  is,  that  their  object  is  not 
to  require  altar,  and  sacrifice,  and  priesthood, 
but  to  regulate,  restrain,  and  limit  these  eccle- 
siastical institutions  already  existing.^  In  the 
history  of  Israel  there  is  the  same  controversy 
between  ecclesiasticism  and  spirituality,  high 
church  and  low  church,  ceremonialism  and  sim- 
plicity, which  has  characterized  the  church  in 
all  ages.  A  striking  illustration  is  afforded  by 
the  51st  Psalm,  in  which  the  original  prophet 
declares  that  "  the  sacrifices  of  God  are  a  broken 
spirit,"  and  a  later  priestly  writer  adds,  with 
curious  incongruity,  "Build  thou  the  walls  of 
Jerusalem;  then  shalt  thou  be  pleased  with 
burnt  offering  and  whole  burnt  offering."  It  is 
an  addition  quite  in  the  spirit  of  much  modern 

^  My  authority  for  this  statement  is  my  brother,  Austin 
Abbott,  Dean  of  the  New  York  University  Law  School.  It 
is  abundantly  borne  out  by  a  careful  and  unprejudiced  study 
of  the  laws. 


50      THE  EVOLUTION  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 

hymn  tinkering.  Mediaeval  European  history 
is,  in  this  respect,  ahnost  an  exact  reproduction 
of  mediaeval  Jewish  history.  The  priests  are 
always  urging  the  importance  of  Temple  and 
altar  and  sacrifice;  the  prophets  are  always  in- 
sisting that  these  are  valuable  only  as  the  instru- 
ments of  a  devout  spirit,  and  that  to  obey  is 
better  than  sacrifice.  At  last,  with  the  coming 
of  Christ,  the  whole  system  of  sacrifice  comes  to 
an  end.  The  sinners  come  to  him,  and  he  habit- 
ually bids  them  go  in  peace  and  sin  no  more. 
Only  once  does  he  send  men  to  the  Temple,  and 
then  as  a  sanitary  measure,  that  the  cure  of  their 
leprosy  may  be  officially  ascertained  and  pro- 
nounced. Not  once  does  he  bid  a  penitent  to 
offer  any  sacrifice  for  his  sins. 

The  Christian  evolutionist,  then,  does  not  see 
in  the  Levitical  code  a  divine  authority  for  a 
sacrificial  system  to  be  maintained  in  attenuated 
forms,  as  in  a  bloodless  sacrifice  of  the  Mass,  or  a 
perpetuated  phrase  in  a  creed.  On  the  contrary, 
he  takes  account  of  the  notion  universally  pre- 
vailing among  i)agan  peoples,  and  not  yet  elimi- 
nated from  Christian  lands,  that  God  must  be 
appeased  by  pain  and  approached  by  sacrifice; 
he  sees  in  the  Levitical  code  a  permission  of  sac- 
rifices, because  their  abolition  could  not  have 
been  comprehended  by  a  primitive  and  spiritu- 
ally uneducated  people;  but  he  also  sees  that 


THE  EVOLUTION  OF  THE  BIBLE.         51 

these  sacrifices  are  not  so  much  commanded,  or 
commended,  as  restrained,  limited,  and  dimin- 
ished ;  he  sees  prophet  after  prophet  declaring, 
either  that  they  are  utterly  valueless,  or  valuable 
only  as  the  expression  of  religious  feeling  and 
purpose;  he  sees  Christ,  even  when  in  close 
proximity  to  the  Temple,  disregarding  the  sacri- 
ficial system  altogether  in  his  treatment  of  re- 
pentant sinners ;  he  sees  Paul  declaring  that  we 
need  no  other  sacrifice  and  no  other  mercy-seat 
than  Christ.  He  believes  that  the  sacrificial 
system  represents  a  profound  spiritual  truth, 
the  truth  that  it  costs  to  forgive  sin;  of  this 
truth  I  shall  have  something  to  say  in  a  subse- 
quent chapter.  He  recognizes  in  the  ceremo- 
nial law  of  the  Old  Testament,  not  a  law  to  be 
universally  obeyed,  either  literally  or  s^miboli- 
cally,  by  all  peoples,  but  part  of  a  system  of 
education,  a  "continuous  progressive  change," 
from  that  conception  of  God  which  regards  him 
as  an  offended  King,  to  be  approached  only  in 
fear,  with  an  offering  and  by  a  court  ceremoni- 
alism, to  that  conception  of  God  which  regards 
him  as  a  Father,  to  be  approached  with  the  un- 
ceremonious confidence*  of  unfrightened  child- 
hood. 

The  Christian  evolutionist  looks  upon  the 
political  laws  of  the  Jews  in  the  same  way. 
There  are  three  great  organic  sins  destructive 


52      THE  EVOLUTION  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 

of  any  society  wliicli  harbors  them :  war,  which 
is  destructive  of  national  order,  and  while  it 
lasts  turns  the  nation  into  an  armed  camp ;  slav- 
ery, which  degrades  labor  and  forbids  the  educa- 
tion of  the  laborers,  that  is,  of  the  vast  majorit}' 
of  the  population ;  and  polygamy,  which  makes 
family  life  impossible,  and  in  the  individual  sub- 
stitutes lust  for  love.  These  three  organic  sins 
are  inevitably  characteristic  of  the  earlier  and 
more  barbaric  states  of  society :  for  combative- 
ness,  which  is  the  inspiration  of  war;  idleness, 
which  is  the  inspiration  of  slavery;  and  lust, 
which  is  the  inspiration  of  polygamy,  are  the 
three  animal  vices  which  are  fastened  upon  man 
as  he  first  issues  from  an  animal  condition.  The 
evolutionist  sees  these  facts  clearly;  but  being 
an  evolutionist  he  has  more  faith  in  education 
than  in  law,  in  growth  than  in  manufacture,  in 
other  words,  in  resident  forces  working  from 
within  than  in  external  forces  operating  from 
without.  He  does  not  think  that  it  is  the  func- 
tion of  government  to  enforce  moral  ideals  upon 
an  uneducated  community  by  penal  enactment. 
He  sees  therefore  in  the  political  law  of  the  Jews 
the  same  evolution  which  he  sees  in  their  ecclesi- 
astical law. 

A  prophetic  lawgiver  perceives  that  war  is  not 
an  honorable  avocation  for  a  nation,  and  issues 
laws  in  restraint  of  war;  he  perceives  that  slav- 


THE  EVOLUTION  OF  THE  BIBLE.         53 

ery  cannot  enrich  a  people,  and  issues  laws  in 
restraint  of  slavery ;  lie  perceives  that  polygamy 
cannot  promote  welfare,  and  as  a  consequence 
issues  laws  in  protection  of  womanhood.  The 
evolutionist  thinks  no  better,  but  rather  worse,  of 
slavery  and  polygamy  because  they  are  "patri- 
archal institutions ;  "  and  he  measures  the  Mosaic 
laws  on  the  subject  by  their  effect,  which  already 
in  the  time  of  Christ  had  been  such  as  practically 
to  abolish  both  the  harem  and  the  slave  from 
loyal  Jewish  households,  and  has  now  made  the 
Jewish  people,  whatever  other  faults  they  may 
possess,  the  most  industrious  and  the  most  chaste 
people  on  the  face  of  the  globe. 

3.  As  the  ecclesiastical  and  the  political 
laws,  so  the  moral  laws  of  the  Bible  afford  no 
perfect  ideal  of  life  at  the  outset,  but  show  a 
"continuous  and  progressive  change"  from  a 
simple  to  a  more  complex,  from  a  lower  to  a 
higher  law.  There  are  certain  fundamental 
principles  which  underlie  all  social  order,  the 
habitual  violation  of  which  can  end  in  nothing 
but  anarchy.  These  are  such  as  the  following : 
reverence  for  a  righteous  God  as  the  only  real 
Lawgiver,  so  that  on  the  one  hand  the  state  has 
no  right  to  enact  or  enforce  a  law  not  divine  in 
its  nature,  and  on  the  other  the  individual  nuist 
obey,  not  because  there  is  force  to  compel  him, 
but  because  conscience  requires  obedience ;  some 


/ 


54      THE  EVOLUTION  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 

stated  time  redeemed  for  self -development  from 
toil  and  drudgery,  else  man  sinks  back  into  tke 
animal  and  life  becomes  a  prison  house ;  respect 
by  children  for  parents,  indispensable  to  home 
government,  order,  and  training;  respect  by 
every  man  for  the  three  great  fundamental  rights 
of  his  neighbor,  —  life,  property,  and  family 
relationships. 

The  Ten  Commandments  prohibit  the  more 
palpable  violation  of  these  principles.  These 
commandments  are  not  only  wonderful  expres- 
sions of  social  righteousness  for  that  early  age, 
but  the  principles  embodied  in  them  underlie  all 
our  modern  criminal  legislation.  But  they  are 
not,  and  are  not  intended  to  be,  final  moral 
ideals  for  the  life  of  the  individual.  One  might 
keep  each  one  of  these  statutes,  except  perhaps 
the  last,  and  not  be  admitted  to  good  society  of 
to-day.  He  might  not  swear,  but  might  be  vul- 
gar and  obscene.  He  might  not  commit  adul- 
tery, but  might  be  sensual,  licentious,  and  an 
habitual  drunkard.  He  might  not  steal,  but 
it  run  a  faro  table  or  a  lottery  shop. 

Nor  is  it  correct  to  say,  as  it  sometimes  has 
been  said,  that  Christ  gives  to  these  command- 
ments a  personal  and  spiritual  interpretation, 
which  clothes  them  with  a  different  meaning. 
For  Christ  does  not  say.  It  hath  been  said  to 
them  of  old  time.  Thou  shalt  not  kill,  and  what 


naoii 
\jlii^ 


THE  EVOLUTION  OF  THE  BIBLE.         55 

they  meant  was,  Thou  shalt  value  life.  He  says, 
But  I  say  unto  you,  Be  not  angry  without  a 
cause.  He  puts  his  law  in  sharp  contrast 
with  the  ancient  law.  There  is  as  little  reason 
for  saying  that  Christ  re-affirms  and  spiritualizes 
the  Ten  Commandments,  as  there  is  for  saying 
that  he  re -affirms  and  spiritualizes  the  law,  An 
eye  for  an  eye,  and  a  tooth  for  a  tooth. 

The  Ten  Commandments  are  simply  prohibi- 
tions of  the  more  palpable  violations  of  the  laws 
of  social  well-being.  They  do  not  afford,  and 
are  not  intended  to  afford,  God's  ideal  of  moral 
character  or  conduct.  Later  in  Jewish  history 
a  higher  ideal  is  presented ;  in  such  utterances 
as,  "Thou  shalt  love  the  Lord  thy  God  with  all 
thy  heart  and  soul  and  strength;  "  "Thou  shalt 
love  thy  neighbor  as  thyself;"  "Who  shall  as- 
cend unto  the  hill  of  the  Lord,  and  who  shall 
stand  in  his  Holy  Place?  He  that  hath  clean 
hands  and  a  pure  heart."  Yet  these  are  not  the 
Christian  ideal.  When  Christ  is  asked.  Which 
is  the  great  command  of  the  Law  ?  and  replies, 
"  Thou  shalt  love  the  Lord  thy  God  with  all  thy 
heart  and  soul  and  strength,  and  thy  neighbor 
as  thyself,"  he  does  not  in  his  answer  give  his 
ideal  of  life.  He  simply  repeats  the  Jewish 
ideal,  as  it  is  expressed  in  two  general  laws 
found  in  the  Jewish  books.  To  love  one's  neigh- 
bor as  one's  self  is  not  the  Christian  law  of  love; 


56      THE  EVOLUTION  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 

it  is  the  Jewish  law  of  justice.  Who  am  I,  that 
I  should  expect  better  treatment  than  or  higher 
regard  from  my  neighbor  than  I  accord  to  him? 
Christ's  ideal  is  quite  different.  He  gives  it 
to  his  own  disciples,  in  his  last  interview  with 
them  before  his  death.  "A  new  commandment 
give  I  unto  you,"  he  says;  "that  ye  love  one 
another  as  I  have  loved  you."  Did  he  love  his 
disciples  only  as  he  loved  himself?  He  that 
beggared  himself  that  he  might  make  us  rich, 
he  that  emptied  himself  of  divinity  that  he 
might  make  us  divine,  he  that  lived  and  loved 
and  suif ered  and  died  for  those  that  were  unwor- 
thy of  his  sacrifice,  loved  us  far  more  than  he 
loved  himself.  This  ideal  of  love  he  left  as  a 
legacy  for  his  followers ;  and  it  is  not  an  impos- 
sible one  for  us.  Paul  loved  the  Gentile  world 
better  than  himself ;  and  every  true  missionary 
has  done  so.  William  of  Orange  loved  his  coun- 
try better  than  himself;  and  every  true  patriot 
has  done  so.  William  Lloyd  Garrison  loved  the 
enslaved  better  than  he  loved  himseK ;  and  every 
true  reformer  has  done  so.  The  true  mother 
loves  her  child  better  than  herself ;  the  nurse  her 
patient;  the  martyr  his  church.  It  is  not  the 
Ten  Commandments  which  should  be  put  up  in 
our  churches,  as  the  ideals  of  our  moral  life  for 
us  to  pattern  after.  They  are  but  the  primitive 
prohibitions  of  the  grosser  sins  against  social 


THE  EVOLUTION  OF  THE  BIBLE.  57 

order.  In  their  place  should  be  put  the  New 
Commandment,  "That  ye  love  one  another  as  I 
have  loved  you." 

This  conception  of  moral  evolution  in  the  Bible 
reconciles  incongruities  and  relieves  difficidties, 
which  on  the  theory  of  a  perfect  and  complete 
revelation  at  the  outset  are  morally  and  intellec- 
tually vmendurable.  That  God  should  tell  a 
father  to  kill  his  child,  it  is  impossible  really  to 
believe.  He  would  be  commanding  by  special 
edict  what  by  a  law  written  in  the  universal  con- 
science he  has  prohibited.  A  few  years  ago  a 
father  sincerely  believed  that  he  had  received 
such  a  connnand;  and  the  community  unani- 
mously adjudged  him  to  be  insane.  But  that  in 
those  early  ages  a  devout  father  should  know 
that  he  must  consecrate  his  child,  even  his  only 
begotten  child,  to  God,  and  in  his  ignorance 
should  imagine  sacrifice  by  death  to  be  the 
only  possible  form  of  such  consecration,  and  that 
God  should  interpose  to  teach  him,  and  through 
him  his  descendants,  that  life,  not  death,  is  the 
true  consecration,  —  that  it  is  not  difficult  to  be- 
lieve. That  God  should  command  the  children 
of  Israel  to  exterminate  the  Canaanites,  slaying 
men,  women,  and  children,  the  same  God  whose 
patient  love  was  manifested  in  the  life  and  char- 
acter of  Jesus  Christ,  it  is  impossible  to  believe. 
But  it   is   quite   possible  to   believe  that  in  a 


58      THE  EVOLUTION  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 

primitive  age  a  people  should  be  inspired  with 
an  enthusiasm  for  righteousness  by  their  proph- 
ets, and  with  a  wholly  sacred  determination  to 
destroy,  root  and  branch,  the  iniquities  which 
made  the  Canaanites  the  most   corrupt  nation 
of   a   corrupt   age;    and    that   they   should    be 
unable  to  see  any  other  way  of  destroying  the 
sin  than  by  destroying  the  sinners,  having  no 
even  remote  conception  of  the  possibility  of  con- 
verting and  educating  them.     Even  in  the  Chris- 
tian church  in  the  nineteenth  century,  there  is  a 
very  general  unbelief  in  the  efficacy  of  any  mea- 
sures for  the  conversion  of  pagan  peoples  to  a 
higher  and  purer  life.     It  is  impossible  to  believe 
that  God,  who  through  his  Son  bids  his  children 
"Love  your  enemies;  do  good  to  them  who  de- 
spitefuUy  use  you,  and  persecute  you,  that  ye 
may  be  the  children  of  your  father  which  is  in 
heaven,"  should  have  inspired  a  persecuted  He- 
brew in  exile  to  execrate  Babylon  with  the  words, 
"  O  daughter  of  Babylon,  who  art  to  be  destroyed ; 
happy  shall  he  be  that  rewardeth  thee  as  thou 
hast  served  us;  happy  shall  he  be  that  taketh 
and  dasheth  thy  little  ones  against  the  stones." 
But  it  is  not  impossible  to  believe  that  a  Hebrew, 
in  this  hour  of  utter  bitterness,  experiencing  the 
cruel  scorn  of  a  people  who  derisively  demanded 
of  their  captives  an  exhibition  of  their  sacred 
psalmody,  —  somewhat    as    we   sometimes   call 


THE  EVOLUTION  OF  THE  BIBLE.         59 

upon  the  North  American  Indians  to  amuse  us 
with  their  war  songs  and  their  war  dances,  — 
in  the  very  frankness  of  his  soul  should  have 
breathed  out  to  God  the  bitterness  of  a  wholly- 
unchristian  hate,  and  in  so  doing  should  have 
found  relief.  It  is  not  the  unknown  author  of 
the  imprecatory  Psahns  who  says  "Follow  me;  " 
it  is  Christ ;  and  the  imprecatory  Psalms  remain 
to  show  us  out  of  what  bitterness  of  feeling  he 
delivers  those  that  follow  him.  To  go  back 
from  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount  to  the  impreca- 
tory Psalms,  and  try  to  find  a  divine  ideal  in 
them,  is  as  if  Bunyan's  Pilgrim  should  go  back 
from  the  Land  of  Beulah  to  the  Slough  of  De- 
spond, because  he  began  his  pilgrimage  by  floun- 
dering therein. 

4.  The  object  of  the  Bible  is  primarily,  not 
a  revelation  of  law,  either  ecclesiastical,  politi- 
cal, or  moral,  but  a  revelation  of  God.  This 
revelation  is  both  imperfect  and  progressive.  It 
is  imperfect,  because  it  is  the  revelation  of  the 
infinite  to  the  finite,  and  the  finite  cannot  per- 
fectly comprehend  the  infinite ;  it  is  progressive, 
because  as  man  grows  in  spiritual  and  intellec- 
tual capacity,  his  apprehension  of  the  infinite 
grows  also.  This  proposition  is  as  familiar  to 
the  student  of  theology  as  it  is  axiomatic.  "If," 
says  Professor  Harris,  "  God  reveals  himself,  it 
must  be  thrmigh  the  medium  ofthejinite^  and  to 


60      THE  EVOLUTION  OF  CHRISTIANITY, 

finite  beings.  The  revelation  must  be  commen- 
surate with  the  medium  through  which  it  is  made 
and  with  the  develoj^ment  of  the  minds  to  whom 
it  is  made.  Hence,  both  the  revelation  itself, 
and  man's  apprehension  of  the  God  revealed, 
must  be  progressive,  and  xit  any  point  of  time 
ineoiivplete.  Hence,  while  it  is  the  true  God  who 
reveals  liimseK,  man's  apprehension  of  God  at 
different  stages  of  his  own  development  may  be 
not  only  incomplete,  but  marred  by  gross  mis- 
conception." 

The  Bible  illustrates  this  truth.  The  reve- 
lation of  God  grows  both  in  clearness  and  in 
spiritual  grandeur  as  man  grows  in  capacity  to 
receive  and  to  communicate  it.  Moses'  concejj- 
tion  of  God  is  superior  to  that  of  Abraham, 
David's  is  superior  to  that  of  Moses,  Isaiah's  is 
superior  to  that  of  David,  and  Paul's  is  superior 
to  that  of  Isaiah. 

The  conception  of  creation  bodied  forth  in 
the  first  chapter  of  Genesis  is  very  different 
from  that  found  in  the  Chaldean  tablets  or  the 
Phoenician  mythology;  but  the  difference  is  re- 
ligious, not  scientific ;  that  is,  it  is  a  difference, 
not  chiefly  in  the  nature  of  the  phenomena  re- 
corded, but  in  the  spirit  in  which  they  are  re- 
corded and  in  the  perception  of  the  One  whose 
nature  they  manifest  and  whose  glory  they  ex- 
press.    In  the  more  ancient  Chaldean  tablets, 


TUE  EVOLUTION  OF  THE  BIBLE.  61 

chaos  forms  the  gods;  in  Genesis,  God  out  of 
chaos  forms  the  world.  In  the  Chaldean  accounts 
of  the  creation  of  men,  Belus  "commanded  one 
of  the  gods  to  cut  off  his  head  and  mix  the  blood 
which  flowed  forth  with  earth,  and  form  men 
therewith,  and  beasts  that  could  bear  the  light. 
So  man  was  made  and  was  intelligent,  being  a 
partaker  of  the  divine  wisdom."^  In  Genesis, 
God  forms  man  out  of  the  dust  of  the  earth  and 
breathes  into  him  the  breath  of  the  divine  life. 
In  brief,  to  quote  Lenormant,  the  prehistoric 
narrative  in  Genesis  is  the  same  as  in  the  Chal- 
dean tablets;  "in  it  the  same  episodes  succeed 
one  another  in  the  same  manner;  and  yet  one 
would  be  blind  not  to  perceive  that  the  signi- 
fication has  become  altogether  different.  The 
exuberant  polytheism  which  encumbers  these 
stories  among  the  Chaldeans  has  been  carefully 
eliminated  to  give  place  to  the  reverent  monothe- 
ism." Thus  the  progressive  revelation  begins 
with  the  conception  of  God  as  the  creator  of  the 
world,  and  of  man  as  made  in  the  image  of  G^l ; 
therefore  of  God  as  spirit,  and  of  matter  as  the 
creature  of  and  subordinate  to  spirit.  Yet  this 
monotheism  is  by  no  means  always  clear  at  first. 
Generally  God  is  represented  as  the  one  and 
only  true  God ;  sometimes,  however,  as  only  a 

1  Lenormant's  Beginnings  of  History,  p.  491.     Rawlinson's 
Ancient  Monarchies,  vol.  i.  p.  143. 


62      TUE  EVOLUTION  OF  CHRISTIAN ITY . 

God  above  all  other  gods.  And  while  the  former 
is  certainly  the  view  generally  entertained  and 
pressed  upon  the  people  by  the  prophets,  the  sec- 
ond is  the  view  generally  entertained  among  the 
people.  It  does  not  seem  absurd  to  them  to 
think  that  they  cannot  conquer  the  Philistines  in 
the  plains  because  their  God  is  not  the  God  of 
the  plains;  nor  to  imagine  that  golden  calves, 
representing  the  sacred  bulls  of  Egypt,  may 
serve  to  symbolize  the  gods  that  brought  them 
up  out  of  Egypt.  It  is  at  least  a  fair  question 
whether  the  plural  form  Elohim  (gods)  used  by 
one  of  the  writers  of  Genesis  is  not  an  indication 
that  the  prevailing  polytheism  of  the  pagan  na- 
tions had  not  in  these  earliest  times  entirely  dis- 
appeared from  the  minds  of  even  the  inspired 
prophets. 

The  monotheistic  conception  lays  the  founda- 
tion for  the  next  step  in  the  j)rogress  of  the  rev- 
elation of  God  to  his  people :  this,  namely,  that 
God  is  a  righteous  God.  The  first  distinct 
st0ement  of  this  truth,  to  us  so  fundamental 
and  even  axiomatic,  is  in  the  narrative  of  Abra- 
ham's interview  with  God,  and  in  this  interview 
it  is  not  asserted  dogmatically,  not  assumed  as 
axiomatic,  but  put  in  a  tone  of  expostulation  and 
entreaty :  "  Shall  not  the  Judge  of  all  the  earth 
do  right?  "  This  conception  of  God  as  a  God 
that  is  righteous  and  does  right  is  brought  clearly 


THE  EVOLUTION  OF  THE  BIBLE.  63 

into  prominence  in  the  revelation  to  and  through 
Moses.  Even  more  than  monotheism  does  this 
distinguish  the  religion  of  the  Hebrews  from  that 
of  the  pagan  nations.  Out  of  this  grows  natu- 
rally and  necessarily  the  conception  of  religion 
as  righteousness.  Unorthodox  writers  see  this  as 
clearly  as  the  most  orthodox.  "The  conditions 
of  Jahveh's  covenant  with  his  people,"  says  Re- 
nan,^  "are  exclusively  moral;  he  recompenses 
them  with  prosperity  in  this  world,  giving  it  to 
those  who  please  him,  and  the  man  who  pleases 
him  must  be  irreproachable.  In  order  to  enjoy 
a  long  life  and  to  be  happy,  a  man  must  avoid 
evil.  The  great  step  is  taken.  The  old  reli- 
gions, in  which  the  god  granted  his  blessings 
to  those  who  offered  him  the  first  sacrifices  and 
who  most  carefully  observed  the  ritual  of  his 
worship,  were  quite  left  behind." 

Life  often  seems  inconsistent  with  this  faith  in 
a  righteous  God  who  rewards  righteousness  and 
punishes  sin.  For  often  the  righteous  suffer  and 
the  wicked  prosper.  Out  of  this  terrible  trag- 
edy of  life,  this  incongruity  between  life  and  the 
moral  sense  of  man  assuring  him  of  the  divine 
nature  of  righteousness,  the  drama  of  Job  is  con- 
structed. Only  as  it  gradually  dawns  upon  the 
spiritual  vision  that  this  is  not  all  of  life,  and 
that  another  life  may  bring  compensation  and 

1  History  of  the  People  of  Israel,  ii.  336. 


64      THE  EVOLUTION  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 

adjust  the  unequal  balances,  does  faith  in  the 
righteousness  of  God  reassure  itself.  At  first 
the  most  sj^iritual  prophet  cannot  conceive  that 
a  righteous  God  should  forgive  sin.  Overlook  it 
he  cannot ;  and  the  cure  of  it  by  patient  love  is 
at  first  not  seen  at  all,  and  later  only  dimly,  im- 
perfectly, and  gradually.  Joshua,  indeed,  dis- 
tinctly tells  the  people  that  they  cannot  serve 
Jehovah  because  he  will  not  forgive  their  sin; 
and  Moses  sometimes  implies  the  same,  some- 
times the  reverse.  Moreover,  at  first  Jehovah  is 
the  God  of  the  nation  rather  than  the  God  of  the 
individual.  He  is  the  God  of  Battles,  the  God 
of  the  Host  of  Israel,  a  Man  of  War,  a  Captain, 
a  King ;  he  marches  at  the  head  of  the  nation, 
directs  its  campaigns,  gives  it  the  victory.  In 
the  earlier  history  he  is  rarely  referred  to  by 
terms  which  indicate  personal  filial  relations  be- 
tween the  soul  and  himself,  as  a  Shepherd,  a 
Father,  a  Friend.  The  phraseology  of  religion 
is  that  of  the  camp  rather  than  that  of  the  house- 
hold. But  by  David's  time  this  new  and  ten- 
derer and  deeper  conception  of  God  has  begun 
to  dawn  on  the  mind  of  Israel.  Repeatedly  by 
the  Psalmist  is  Jehovah  addressed  as  ""my  God," 
a  phrase  apparently  used  but  twice  before 
David's  time.  In  the  Hebrew  Psalter,  God  is 
seen  to  be  a  merciful  God,  a  personal  Friend 
redeeming  even  more  than  judging  the  world. 


THE  EVOLUTION  OF  THE  BIBLE.         Q>o 

"  Who  f org-iveth  all  thine  iniquities ; 
"Who  healeth  all  thy  diseases  ; 
Who  redeemeth  thy  life  from  destruction ; 

The  Lord  is  full  of  compassion  and  gracious, 

Slow  to  anger,  and  plenteous  in  mercy. 

He  will  not  always  chide ; 

Neither  will  he  keep  his  anger  for  ever. 

He  hath  not  dealt  with  us  after  our  sins, 

Nor  rewarded  us  after  our  iniquities. 

For  as  the  heaven  is  high  ahove  the  earth, 

So  great  is  his  mercy  toward  them  that  fear  him. 

As  far  as  the  east  is  from  the  west. 

So  far  hath  he  removed  our  transgressions  from  us." 

Nothing  like  this,  scarcely  anything  approxi- 
mating this,  is  to  be  found  in  the  Pentateuch. 
The  only  even  partial  parallels  are  in  Deutero- 
nomy, which  there  is  at  least  good  reason  to  be- 
lieve was  written  towards  the  close  of  the  mon- 
archy. But  even  in  the  Psalms  God  is  still  the 
God  of  Israel;  and  still  in  the  main  the  gromid 
of  appeal  to  him  is  the  righteousness  of  him 
who  appeals.  It  is  not  till  Isaiah,  the  Second 
Isaiah,^  that  God  is  clearly  revealed  as  a  God 
whose  mercy,  as  well  as  justice,  extends  to  all 
the  inhabitants  of  the  earth.  Israel  is  still  the 
chosen  people  of  God,  but  chosen  to  be  a  light 
to  lighten  the  Gentiles.     God  is  still  a  just  God, 

^  Nearly  all  modern  critics  regard  Isa.  xl.-lxvi.  as  written 
a  century  later  than  the  preceding  portion  of  the  book,  and 
by  another  author,  designated  as  the  Great  Unknown,  or  some- 
times as  the  Second  Isaiah. 


66      THE  EVOLUTION  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 

but  a  God  whose  justice  is  mercy,  and  whose 
righteousness  redeems.  And  a  glimpse,  the 
first  in  this  resplendent  progress  of  man's  ac- 
quaintance with  God,  is  given  of  that  divine 
suffering  love  which  is  at  once  to  judge  and  to 
redeem  the  world,  in  the  person  of  the  Suffering 
Servant  of  Jehovah,  who  bears  the  iniquities  of 
Jehovah's  people,  and  by  his  justice  justifies 
many. 

Thus  the  Christian  evolutionist  sees  in  the 
Bible  not  a  complete  and  perfect  revelation  of 
science,  history,  law,  ethics,  or  even  theology ;  he 
sees  man  gradually  receiving  God's  revelation  of 
himself.  The  Bible  is  not  an  infallible  standard 
of  truth  or  life.  It  is  the  history  of  the  growth 
of  man's  consciousness  of  God.  It  is  the  ex- 
pression of  God  in  human  thought,  God  speak- 
ing to  man  and  through  man,  God  speaking 
through  the  selected  writings  of  the  selected 
prophets  of  a  selected  people.  Thus  it  is  truly  a 
standard ;  but  not  a  final  and  infallible  standard. 
Its  history  is  composed,  as  other  histories  have 
been  composed,  out  of  such  materials  as  were  at 
hand  or  could  be  secured ;  but  the  historian  saw, 
what  other  contemporaneous  historians  did  not 
see,  God  in  his  world,  and  wrote  the  history  with 
God  manifested  in  it.  The  laws,  ceremonial  and 
political,  do  not  afford,  and  are  not  intended  to 
afford,  a  final  form  for  either  worship  or  justice; 


THE  EVOLUTION  OF  THE  BIBLE.         67 

they  are  suited  to  their  times,  and  are  such  forms 
as  are  best  adapted  to  express  worship  and  to 
execute  justice  in  a  rude  age  and  among  a  bar- 
barous people;  and  they  are  the  more  divine 
because  they  are  not  perfect,  but  are  with  divine 
compassion  adapted  to  an  early  age  and  fitted  to 
prepare  for  better  days  to  come.  The  earliest 
moral  laws  are  not  ideals  for  the  individual  con- 
duct and  character;  they  embody  such  regula- 
tions as  are  necessary  to  social  order,  like  the 
regulations  in  a  school,  without  which  order, 
and  therefore  intelligent  progress,  would  be  im- 
possible ;  and  they  express  such  ideals  as  could 
be  apprehended  by  man  in  the  earlier  stages  of 
his  moral  development.  Their  value  consists, 
not  in  the  fact  that  they  afford  a  moral  standard 
for  all  time,  but  in  the  fact  that  they  prepare 
men  for  a  better  standard  in  the  future.  And 
the  earliest  conceptions  of  God,  while  immeasur- 
ably superior  to  those  embodied  in  the  pagan 
literature  about,  and  superior  to  many  that  even 
now  prevail  in  intelligent  circles  in  the  United 
States,  are  inferior  to  those  which  are  expressed 
in  the  experience  of  the  later  prophets.  Each 
successive  age  sees  God  more  clearly  and  inter- 
prets him  more  clearly  than  does  its  predeces- 
sor, until  the  fullness  of  time  has  come,  and  the 
Word  no  longer  speaks  through  the  broken  ut- 
terances of  men,  but  becomes  incarnate. 


CHAPTER   III. 
THE  EVOLUTION   OF  THEOLOGY. 

The  Old  Theology, 

The  Bible  is  a  book  of  religion,  not  a  book 
of  theology.  The  questions  which  the  Hebrew 
mind  asked  were  questions  of  religion,  not  of 
theology.  Let  us  recur  to  Max  Miiller's  defi- 
nition of  religion:  "Religion  consists  in  the  per- 
ception of  the  Infinite  under  such  manifestations 
as  are  able  to  influence  the  moral  character  of 
man."  The  Hebrew  prophets,  then,  sought  for 
such  a  percej^tion  of  the  Infinite  as  would  influ- 
ence the  moral  character  of  those  to  whom  they 
spoke.  They  did  not  ask  the  question.  What  is 
God?  but.  What  is  the  way  to  Him?  Nor, 
What  is  the  nature  of  sin  ?  but,  How  shall  we  get 
rid  of  it  ?  Nor,  What  is  the  origin  of  jiain  ?  but. 
How  shall  we  make  a  true  spiritual  use  of  it  ? 
The  Bible  accordingly  contains  few  or  no  defini- 
tions. None  of  God,  unless  "God  is  love"  be 
regarded  as  a  definition;  none  of  sin,  unless 
"Sin  is  lawlessness"  be  regarded  as  a  defini- 
tion; none  of  faith,  unless   "Faith  is  the  sub- 


THE  EVOLUTION  OF  THEOLOGY.  60 

stance  of  things  hoped  for,  the  evidence  of 
things  not  seen,"  be  regarded  as  a  definition; 
and  absokitely  none  of  atonement,  regeneration, 
the  forgiveness  of  sin,  the  nature  of  Christ,  or 
the  divine  attributes. 

The  book  of  Job,  if  not  in  authorship  the  old- 
est in  the  Bible,  undoubtedly  represents  the  ear- 
liest religious  life.  It  is  a  picture  of  Hebraic 
thought  in  its  beginnings.  If  not  written  be- 
fore the  Mosaic  law,  it  is  written  to  portray  a 
prior  state  of  society.  There  is  in  it  no  refer- 
ence to  the  Mosaic  dispensation,  to  the  sacrifices, 
to  the  Ten  Commandments,  or  to  any  explicit 
revelation.  It  is  a  book  of  questionings,  rather 
than  of  answers.  Job  is  a  theist,  living  before 
revelation.  He  has  believed  that  God  is  a 
righteous  God,  and  will  reward  righteousness 
and  punish  iniquity.  He  has  been  righteous, 
and  yet  he  has  suffered  overwhelming  disaster. 
When  his  friends  insist  that  he  must  have  sinned, 
otherwise  this  disaster  would  not  have  come  upon 
him,  he  repudiates  indignantly  their  explana- 
tion. He  is  too  honest  to  pretend  a  confession 
which  is  not  real.  His  utterances  are  the  cry 
of  a  perplexed  soul.  He  interprets  the  problem 
of  life  as  it  presents  itself,  not  to  the  philoso- 
pher in  his  study,  but  to  men  and  women  in 
the  actual  experiences  of  their  life.  "Oh,  that 
I  knew  where  I  might  find  him,"  he  cries,  "that 


70      THE  EVOLUTION  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 

I  might  come  even  unto  liis  dwelling  place.  I 
would  set  in  order  my  cause  before  liim."  Un- 
able to  find  God,  he  longs  for  some  mediator 
who  shall  interpret  him.  "He  is  not  a  man 
as  I  am,  that  I  should  answer  him,  and  we  should 
come  together  in  judgment.  Neither  is  there 
any  Daysman  \i.  e.  mediator  or  umpire]  betwixt 
us  that  might  lay  his  hand  upon  us  both."  He 
longs  for  some  clear  revelation  that  will  interpret 
to  him  the  enigma  of  his  own  personal  life,  and 
will  make  clear  to  him  what  he  should  do.  "Oh 
that  I  had  the  indictment  which  mine  adversary 
had  written;  surely  I  would  carry  it  upon  my 
shoulder,  I  would  bind  it  unto  me  as  a  crown." 
These  are  not  the  questions  of  philosophy,  but  of 
life.  They  are  evoked  out  of  sjDiritual  struggle; 
they  are  far  profounder,  more  serious,  more 
agonizing,  than  the  questions  which  the  philoso- 
pher calmly  ponders  in  his  study,  surrounded  by 
his  volumes. 

To  these  questions  the  Hebrew  prophets  af- 
forded, even  in  the  Old  Testament,  partial  an- 
swers. They  did  not  attempt  to  define  God, 
but  they  did  point  the  way  to  him. 

"  Who  shall  ascend  into  the  hill  of  the  Lord  ? 
Or  who  shall  stand  in  his  holy  place  ? 
He  that  hath  clean  hands,  and  a  pure  heart ; 
Who  hath  not  lifted  up  his  soul  unto  vanity,  nor  sworn  deeeit- 
fuUy. 


THE  EVOLUTION  OF  THEOLOGY.  71 

He  shall  receive  the  blessing  from  the  Lord, 
And  righteousness  from  the  God  of  his  salvation." 

These  prophets  did  not  attempt  to  define  the 
nature  of  sin,  but  they  did  point  out  the  remedy. 

"  Wash  you ;  make  you  clean ;  put  away  the 
evil  of  your  doings  from  before  mine  eyes ;  cease 
to  do  evil;  learn  to  do  well;  seek  judgment;  re- 
lieve the  oppressed;  judge  the  fatherless;  plead 
for  the  widow.  Come  now,  and  let  us  reason  to- 
gether, saith  the  Lord :  though  your  sins  be  as 
scarlet,  they  shall  be  as  white  as  snow ;  though 
they  be  red  like  crimson,  they  shall  be  as  wool." 

The  prophets  did  not  discuss  the  origin  of 
pain.  They  did  not  puzzle  themselves  over  the 
problem  how,  into  a  world  governed  by  love,  sin 
and  suffering  have  come.  They  sought  for  peace 
in  an  experience  of  trust  transcending  knowledge. 

"  Commit  thy  way  unto  the  Lord  ; 

Trust  also  in  him  ;  and  he  shall  bring-  it  to  pass. 

And  he  shall  bring  forth  thy  righteousness  as  the  light, 

And  thy  judgment  as  the  noonday. 

Rest  in  the  Lord,  and  wait  patiently  for  him : 

Fret  not  thyself  because  of  him  who  prospereth  hi  his  way." 

To  these  practical  questions  of  life,  to  which 
the  Hebrew  prophets  gave  partial  and  tentative 
answers,  Jesus  Christ  gave  answers  fuller  and 
more  complete.  He  fulfilled  the  law  and  the 
prophets,  that  is,  he  filled  out  the  outline  sketch 
which  they  had  made.     He  began  his  ministry 


72      THE  EVOLUTION  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 

by  proclaiming  that  the  Kingdom  of  God  was  at 
hand;  then,  in  private  conference  with  his  dis- 
ciples, he  told  them  that  he  was  the  long-prom- 
ised Messiah,  come  to  bring  that  kingdom  upon 
the  earth;  and  finally,  he  assured  them  that  it 
was  through  him  that  they  were  to  come  to  God. 
"I  have  manifested  the  Father's  name,"  he  said 
to  them.  "He  that  hath  seen  me  hath  seen  the 
Father."  He  said  nothing  against  the  Jewish 
system  of  sacrifices;  but  he  absolutely  ignored 
it.  When  men  came  to  him  repentant,  with  the 
burden  of  their  sin,  he  simply  told  them  their 
sins  were  forgiven,  and  they  were  to  arise  and 
go  their  way  and  sin  no  more;  but  he  never 
sent  a  penitent  to  the  priest  to  offer  a  sin-offer- 
ing for  his  sins.  More  by  his  deeds  than  by 
his  words  he  taught  men  that  pain  was  not  evil ; 
that  sanctified  by  love  it  was  beneficent ;  that  it 
was  a  glorious  thing  to  suffer  for  love's  sake; 
that  such  love-suffering  was  to  be  coveted,  not 
fled  from ;  and  he  bade  his  disciples  take  up  the 
cross  and  follow  him.  Thus  he  answered  the 
three  great  questions  of  religion :  How  to  find 
God;  how  to  get  rid  of  sin;  how  to  utilize  suf- 
fering. But  his  silence  was  only  less  significant 
than  his  speech.  Like  the  prophets  who  pre- 
ceded him,  he  preached  religion,  not  theology. 
That  is,  he  answered  the  vital  questions  of  expe- 
rience, not  the  curious  inquiries  of  the  intellect. 


THE  EVOLUTION  OF  THEOLOGY.  73 

He  furnished  no  catalogue  of  divine  attributes 
and  no  definition  of  the  Infinite,  but  he  told 
men  the  way  to  God.  He  did  not  discuss  the 
nature  of  sin,  nor  its  origin,  nor  in  one  single 
instance  the  relation  of  the  individual  to  the 
race,  to  his  ancestry,  or  to  Adam.  But  he  as- 
sured men  that  by  breaking  off  their  sins  in 
righteousness  they  might  find  forgiveness  and  re- 
lief. He  never  discussed  the  question  how  pain 
entered  into  the  world,  but  he  gave  to  pain  a 
new  meaning  and  to  the  souls  of  men  a  new  in- 
spiration, which  made  them  eager  to  enter  into 
it.  Nowhere  outside  the  church  of  Christ  can 
one  find  such  an  expression  as  that  of  Paul,  "I 
count  all  things  but  loss  for  the  excellency  of 
the  knowledge  of  Christ  Jesus  my  Lord.  .  .  . 
That  I  may  know  him,  and  the  power  of  his 
resurrection,  and  the  fellowship  of  his  suffer- 
ings, being  made  conformable  unto  his  death." 
In  order  to  introduce  Christianity  into  the 
Greek  and  Roman  world,  it  was  as  necessary 
that  it  should  be  re-cast  into  Greek  and  Roman 
thought  moulds  as  that  it  should  be  expressed  in 
Greek  and  Roman  language.  For  this  re-cast- 
ing of  it,  the  world  is  chiefly  indebted  to  the 
Apostle  Paul.  Humanly  speaking,  Christianity 
would  have  been  only  a  reformed  Judaism,  but 
for  him.  He  did  not  add  to  Christianity,  as 
some  have  imagined,  nor  did  he  corrupt  it,  as 


74      THE  EVOLUTION  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 

others  have  imagined ;  neither  did  he  simply  re- 
iterate what  Jesus  Christ  had  taught  in  the  forms 
in  which  Jesus  Christ  taught  it.  He  translated 
Christianity  from  Hebrew  into  Greek  and 
Roman  forms  of  thought.  He  was  the  necessary 
link  between  the  Hebraic  and  the  Gentile  world. 
Paul  seems  to  me  to  have  been  greatly  misun- 
derstood, alike  by  his  admirers  and  his  critics. 
He  was  not  primarily  a  philosoj)her,  loving  the 
truth  for  its  own  sake  and  constructing  it  in 
carefully  articulated  systems.  He  had  and  ex- 
pressed a  vigorous  contempt  for  mere  wisdom. 
In  his  writings  there  are  few  or  no  references  to 
the  philosophical  systems  of  his  time.  He  was 
not  by  nature  a  logician ;  he  did  not  reach  his 
conclusions  by  labored  processes  of  argument. 
He  was  a  Hebrew  of  the  Hebrews,  belonging 
by  race  and  by  his  inherent  religious  spirit  to  a 
people  who  have  given  the  world  a  David  and 
an  Isaiah.  He  was  the  last  of  the  Hebrew  pro- 
phets, a  seer  rather  than  a  logician.  His  mind 
was  more  nearly  of  the  type  of  Emerson  or 
Goethe  than  of  the  type  of  Calvin  or  Thomas 
Aquinas.  His  life  was  not  that  of  a  philosopher, 
but  that  of  an  evangelist.  He  traveled  from 
city  to  city,  preaching  the  gospel.  The  churches 
which  sprang  up  where  he  preached,  he  carried 
as  a  burden  on  his  heart.  He  wrote  to  them 
practical  letters  of  counsel.     From  these  letters 


THE  EVOLUTION  OF  THEOLOGY.  75 

and  from  the  evangelistic  sermons  of  which  we 
have  fragmentary  reports,  his  system  of  theology 
has  to  be  deduced,  as  one  might  deduce  a  system 
of  practical  theology  from  the  sermons  of  Dwight 
L.  Moody,  or  George  Whitefield.  His  logic  is 
often  defective,  and  it  is  always  the  logic  of  an 
advocate.  He  does  not  hesitate  to  use  the  argu- 
mentwn  ad  hominem.  He  appeals  to  the  pre- 
conceived notions  and  the  established  prejudices 
of  his  hearers  in  order  to  secure  their  assent  to 
the  truths  and  principles  which  he  is  inculcating. 
Thus,  in  the  ninth,  tenth,  and  eleventh  chapters 
of  Romans,  he  appeals  to  a  people  who  believed 
in  election,  —  believed  that  God  had  chosen  the 
Jews  as  his  peculiar  people,  and  had  passed  by 
all  the  rest  of  mankind.  Assuming  the  divine 
sovereignty,  which  was  the  fundamental  postu- 
late of  all  Jewish  theology,  Paul  argues  from  it 
that  God  has  a  right  to  elect  the  heathen  and  pass 
by  the  Jews,  if  he  so  chooses.  He  is  not  in  these 
chapters  arguing  for  election  and  confirming  a 
narrow  view  of  divine  grace,  but  he  is  using  a 
doctrine  of  election  so  firmly  established  in  his 
auditors'  hearts  as  to  be  ineradicable,  in  order  to 
give  them  an  enlarged  conception  of  divine  grace 
and  lead  them  to  the  final  conclusion  that  "God 
hath  shut  them  all  up  together  in  unbelief  that 
he  might  have  mercy  upon  all." 

But  while  Paul  was  by  nature  a  Hebrew  and 


76      THE  EVOLUTION  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 

a  prophet,  he  lived  in  a  scholastic  age  and  re- 
ceived a  scholastic  education.  There  were  no 
prophets  in  Judaea,  no  poets  in  Greece.  The 
greatest  genius  is  at  once  a  product  and  a  cause 
of  his  times.  In  Paul,  scholasticism  overlaid  a 
spiritual  nature,  and  at  the  same  time  scholasti- 
cism was  voluntarily  chosen  by  a  spiritual  nature 
as  an  instrmnent  for  the  production  of  spiritual 
realities.  Thus  this  man,  evangelist  and  prophet 
in  his  essential  nature,  was  philosopher  and  scho- 
lastic and  dialectician  in  his  forms  of  thought, 
23artly  because  education  modified  his  nature, 
partly  because  it  was  his  nature  to  be,  as  he  him- 
self said,  "all  things  to  all  men,"  if  by  any  means 
he  might  save  some. 

But  the  problems  which  interested  him  were 
the  Hebraic  rather  than  the  Greek  problems, 
the  problems  of  religion,  not  those  of  intellectual 
curiosity :  not  the  question  how  to  define  God, 
but  how  to  find  him ;  not  how  to  account  for  sin, 
but  how  to  get  rid  of  it;  not  how  to  explain  the 
existence  of  suffering,  but  how  to  maintain  a  life 
of  peace  and  joy  in  the  midst  of  pain.  That  this 
was  his  purpose  he  has  expressed  again  and  again 
in  the  autobiographic  as23irations  for  himself  and 
for  those  to  whom  he  ministered.  His  letters 
abound  with  such  prayers  as  "That  ye  might  be 
filled  with  all  the  fullness  of  God."  "The  very 
God  of  peace  sanctify  you  wholly."    "The  peace 


THE  EVOLUTION  OF  THEOLOGY.  77 

of  God  which  passeth  all  understanding  keep 
your  hearts  and  minds  through  Christ  Jesus." 
These  are  the  utterances  of  a  man  the  insj)iration 
of  whose  life  is,  not  curiosity  to  solve  difficult 
thought  problems,  but  a  great  desire  to  enrich  in 
himself  and  in  others  the  spiritual  life  of  faith 
and  hoj)e  and  love.  For  the  accomplishment  of 
this  purpose  he  translated  Christ's  answers  to  the 
great  problems  of  our  spiritual  life  into  Greek 
and  Roman  forms  of  thought.  The  history  of 
Christian  theology  is  the  history  of  the  intermix- 
ture of  his  answers  with  pagan  philosophy,  and 
of  the  gradual  process  by  which  the  gospel,  as 
Christ  proclaimed  it  and  Paul  interpreted  it, 
pervaded,  purified,  and  transformed  pagan  con- 
ceptions. 

The  ancient  world  of  thought  may  be  divided 
into  three  classes:  the  Oriental  or  mystic,  the 
Greek  or  philosophical,  the  Roman  or  legal. 
We  shall  perhaps  best  trace  the  progress  of  the 
Old  Theology  by  considering  it  under  these  three 
aspects. 

1.  The  Oriental  does  not  think, — he  medi- 
tates ;  the  Occidental  does  not  meditate,  —  he 
thinks.  The  object  of  the  Oriental  is  vision,  the 
object  of  the  Occidental  is  action.  To  see  God 
is  the  supreme  religious  desire  of  the  one ;  to  do 
God's  will  is  the  supreme  religious  desire  of  the 
other.     The  combination    of  Orientalism    with 


78      THE  EVOLUTION  OF  CHBISTIANITY. 

Christianity  gave  gnosticism.  Tlie  predominat- 
ing characteristic  of  gnosticism  was  its  unreality. 
Matter  had  no  real  existence,  or  existence  only 
as  an  emanation  of  pure  thought.  Sin  and  evil 
were  not,  they  only  seemed  to  be.  The  spiritual 
was  the  only  actual ;  all  else  was  as  the  phantas- 
magoria of  a  dream.  God  was  the  only  reality. 
God  is  good,  therefore  nothing  but  goodness 
really  exists.  Individualism  is  separation  from 
God,  and  therefore  evil.  The  end  of  religion  is 
not  life,  that  is,  individuality,  but  absorption  in 
God,  that  is,  ceasing  to  live.  In  various  forms 
this  Orientalism  has  at  times  reappeared  in  the 
Christian  church,  usually  as  a  reaction  and  pro- 
test against  legalism  and  dogmatism.  It  is  need- 
less here  to  trace  its  successive  appearances  as 
mysticism,  pietism,  quietism.  In  our  own  time 
a  lingering  survival  of  it  is  seen  sometimes  in 
spiritual  experiences  expressed  in  such  a  hymn  as 

* '  Oh  to  be  nothing,  nothing, 
Only  to  lie  at  his  feet, 
A  broken  and  empty  vessel 
For  the  Master's  sei-viee  meet." 

Sometimes  it  appears  in  exotic  forms  of  semi- 
religious  philosophy,  as  in  the  spiritual  exalta- 
tion which  says,  "  Believe  that  you  are  righteous, 
and  you  are  righteous,"  or  even  "Believe  that 
you  are  well,  and  you  are  well." 

Between   this   Oriental   gnosticism    and    the 


THE  EVOLUTION  OF  THEOLOGY.  79 

practical  religion  of  the  Old  and  New  Testa- 
ments there  is  little  in  common.  It  is  not  a 
broken  and  empty  vessel,  but  a  whole  and  full 
one,  which  is  for  the  Master's  service  meet.  The 
life  which  Christ  inspires  leads  to  the  prayer  to 
be  something,  not  nothing,  and  ever  something 
more  and  more.  The  end  of  his  religion  is  not 
absorption  in  God,  but  an  individual  life  filled 
fidl  of  the  spirit  of  God.  Pain,  disease,  death, 
are  not  unreal  evils  to  be  imagined  out  of  ex- 
istence ;  they  are  blessed  realities  to  be  used  by 
the  spiritual  soul  in  growing  Godward.  Sin 
and  evil  are  not  phantasmagoria,  but  terrible 
realities,  and  the  battle  against  them  to  which 
we  are  called  is  the  battle,  not  of  an  insane  man 
with  his  dreams,  but  of  soldiers  against  an 
actual  foe.  So,  in  spite  of  its  occasional  and 
episodical  appearances  in  the  Christian  church. 
Oriental  gnosticism  has  never  gotten  a  foothold 
in  Christendom ;  and  on  the  other  hand,  Chris- 
tianity, though  its  cradle  was  in  the  East,  trav- 
eled not  eastward  but  westward,  and  has  never 
yet  succeeded  in  pervading  Oriental  countries. 
Not  its  methods  only,  but  its  very  principles  and 
aims,  are  radically  different  from  those  of  Orien- 
tal philosophy.  ^ 

2.  The  Greek  mind  was  specidative.  The 
Athenians,  who  "  spent  their  time  in  nothing  else, 
but  either  to  tell  or  to  hear  some  new  thing," 


80      THE  EVOLUTION  OF  CHRISTIANITY, 

were  characteristic  Greeks.  The  problems  of 
Greek  j^hilosophy  were  not  like  those  of  the  He- 
brew prophets.  The  Hebrew  asked,  What  shall 
I  do?  The  Greek,  What  shaU  I  think ?  So  the 
Greeks  looked  to  the  new  religion  to  tell  them, 
What  is  God?  What  is  sin  ?  What  is  the  origin 
of  evil?  At  the  same  time  Christianity  brought 
with  it  new  problems,  to  the  solution  of  which 
they  set  themselves.  Paul  said  that  Jesus 
Christ  had  come  into  the  world  to  answer  the 
question  of  the  Altar  to  the  Unknown  God: 
"Whom  ye  ignorantly  worship,  him  declare  I 
unto  you."  Straightway  the  Greek  began  to 
ask.  Who  is  this  Christ,  and  what  is  his  relation 
to  the  Infinite?  Paul  said  that  Jesus  Christ  is 
the  power  of  God  unto  salvation.  The  Greek 
began  to  ask.  What  kind  of  power?  How  does 
he  effect  salvation  ?  In  what  consists  the  efficacy 
of  his  life  and  death?  To  these  and  kindred 
speculative  questions  the  Greeks  gave  their 
strength.  The  result  was  not  primarily  a  right- 
eous life,  but  a  philosophical  system.  The  an- 
swer to  speculative  questions  never  does  more 
than  send  the  questioner  back  of  the  answer  to 
ask  a  new  question  more  difficult  than  before. 
The  spirit  of  speculation  was  not  allayed,  but 
stimulated,  by  discussion,  until  finally  the  scho- 
lastic debates  reached  their  climax  in  the  extra- 
ordinary contradictions  of  the  Athanasian  Creed : 


THE  EVOLUTION  OF  THEOLOGY.  81 

"  Whosoever  will  be  saved  :  before  all  tliiucs 
it  is  necessary  that  he  hold  the  Catholic  faith. 
Which  faith  except  every  one  do  keep  whole 
and  inidefiled :  without  doubt  he  shall  perish 
everlastingly.  And  the  Catholic  faith  is  this: 
That  we  worship  one  God  in  Trinity,  and  Trinity 
in  Unity.  Neither  confounding  the  Persons: 
nor  dividing  the  Substance  (Essence).  For 
there  is  one  Person  of  the  Father:  another  of 
the  Son :  and  another  of  the  Holy  Ghost.  The 
Father  uncreate  (uncreated) :  the  Son  uncreate 
(uncreated) :  and  the  Holy  Ghost  uncreate  (un- 
created). The  Father  incomprehensible  (unlim- 
ited): the  Son  incomprehensible  (unlimited): 
and  the  Holy  Ghost  incomprehensible  (unlimited 
or  infinite).  The  Father  eternal:  the  Son  eter- 
nal :  and  the  Holy  Ghost  eternal.  And  yet  they 
are  not  three  eternals :  but  one  eternal.  As  also 
there  are  not  three  incomprehensibles  (infinites), 
nor  three  uncreated :  but  one  uncreated  :  and 
one  incomprehensible  (infinite).  So  likewise  the 
Father  is  Almighty :  the  Son  Almighty :  and  the 
Holy  Ghost  Almighty.  And  yet  they  are  not 
three  Almighties:  but  one  Almighty.  So  the 
Father  is  God :  the  Son  is  God :  and  the  Holy 
Ghost  is  God.  And  yet  they  are  not  three 
Gods :  but  one  God.  So  likewise  the  Father  is 
Lord :  the  Son  Lord :  and  the  Holy  Ghost  Lord. 
And  yet  not  three  Lords:  but  one  Lord." 


82      THE  EVOLUTION  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 

Whether  these  speculative  answers  to  the 
speculative  questions  of  the  Greek  mind  are  right 
or  wrong,  intelligible  or  unintelligible,  pro- 
foundly significant  or  without  real  significance, 
I  do  not  here  inquire.  Whatever  opinion  one 
may  entertain  of  the  creed  as  the  embodiment  of 
an  intellectual  system,  it  is  perfectly  clear  that 
it  does  not  answer,  and  does  not  even  pretend 
to  answer,  the  Hebrew  questions.  How  shall  I 
find  God?  and  How  shall  I  become  like  him? 
Be  the  answers  true  or  false,  they  are  intellec- 
tual answers  to  an  intellectual  problem.  They 
are  not  and  do  not  pretend  to  be  spiritual  an- 
swers to  a  spiritual  problem.  The  difference 
between  the  Athanasian  Creed  and  the  Twenty- 
fourth  Psahn,  or  the  Parable  of  the  Prodigal 
Son,  is  not  a  difference  in  philosophy,  it  is  a 
difference  between  speculation  and  religion. 
The  very  nature  of  duty  and  life  is  differently 
regarded :  in  the  teaching  of  Jesus  Christ,  duty 
consists  in  loving  the  Lord  your  God  with  all 
your  heart  and  soul  and  strength,  and  your 
neighbor  as  yourself;  in  the  Athanasian  Creed 
it  consists  in  believing  certain  enigmatical  de- 
clarations respecting  the  interrelationships  of 
the  Infinite.  Isaiah  tells  us,  whoever  will  be 
saved  must  cease  to  do  evil  and  learn  to  do 
well.  The  Athanasian  Creed  has  nothing  to 
say  about  ceasing  to  do  evil  or  learning  to  do 


THE  EVOLUTION  OF  THEOLOGY,  83 

well.  He  that  will  be  saved  must  think  in  a 
certain  prescribed  form  of  the  Trinity.  The 
nature  of  life  and  the  conditions  of  salvation  are 
quite  different  in  the  two  documents.  Religion 
has  given  place  to  theology. 

3.  The  Roman  mind  was  practical,  not  specu- 
lative; but  it  was  also  legal  and  governmental, 
not  spiritual  or  religious.  As  the  Oriental  was 
given  to  dreams  and  the  Greek  to  speculative 
thinking,  so  the  Roman  was  given  to  problems 
of  law  and  of  government.  The  Roman  solu- 
tion of  those  problems  was  as  simple  as  it  is  to 
us  unsatisfactory.  There  was  one  Emperor  at 
the  head  of  the  Empire,  absolute  in  his  control 
of  it,  from  whom  issued  edicts  which  were  of 
binding  force  on  all  the  citizens  of  that  Empire. 
Loyalty  to  those  edicts  was  the  one  virtue  recog- 
nized in  the  Empire;  disobedience  to  those 
edicts  was  visited  by  an  inexorable  penalty ;  for- 
giveness was  a  personal  pardon  for  a  personal 
offense,  and  coidd  ordinarily  only  be  granted 
upon  condition  of  some  expiation  or  satisfaction 
of  the  violated  law;  and  finall}'',  access  to  the 
Emperor  was  for  most  men  only  through  subor- 
dinate officials  and  intermediaries. 

Christianity  entering  Rome,  and  beginning 
there,  its  work  of  transformation,  was  in  the 
process  itself  transformed.  As  theology  in  the 
Orient  became  mystical   and  imaginative,   and 


84      THE  EVOLUTION  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 

in  Greece  speculative  and  philosophical,  so  in 
Rome  it  became  forensic  or  governmental  or 
imperial.  By  the  very  necessity  of  his  intel- 
lectual condition,  the  Roman,  as  the  Greek,  was 
compelled  to  organize  his  religious  philosophy 
along  the  lines  in  which  he  had  been  educated, 
and  to  which  he  was  accustomed.  He  therefore 
thought  of  God  as  a  great  imperial  Caesar,  from 
whom  all  authority  proceeded;  absolute,  but 
always  righteous  and  always  just.  He  conceived 
of  laws  as  edicts  or  statutes  proceeding  from  this 
imj)erial  God,  inexorable,  certain  to  be  admin- 
istered, against  which  no  man  could  throw  him- 
self without  being  destroyed  in  the  collision. 
He  thought  of  the  Bible  as  a  book  of  statutes, 
explaining  and  promulgating  these  edicts  of  the 
imperial  God  to  the  sons  of  men.  It  was  essen- 
tial in  his  conception,  therefore,  that  this  stat- 
ute book  should  be  without  any  error  or  any 
mistake.  A  mistake  in  the  transcription  of  a 
statute  of  the  legislature  of  the  State  of  New 
York,  if  it  does  not  absolutely  vitiate  the  stat- 
ute, vitiates  it  for  all  practical  purposes.  We 
are  to  be  governed  by  the  written  record  of  the 
will  of  the  legislature,  not  by  the  unknown  will 
which  has  been  mistakenly  reported.  The 
Roman  theology,  therefore,  conceived  of  the 
Bible  as  an  absolute  and  inexorable  record  of 
the  laws  which  this  imperial  God  had  issued  for 


THE  EVOLUTION  OF  THEOLOGY.  85 

the  government  of  his  subjects.  Sin  was  a  vio- 
lation of  this  law,  and  must  be  punished;  be- 
cause, if  it  were  not  punished,  anarchy,  disorder, 
and  the  disruption  of  this  great  divine  empire 
would  be  the  inevitable  result.  If  any  mercy 
were  shown  to  the  sinner,  if  he  were  pardoned, 
then  something  must  be  found  that  would  be  a 
substitute  for  this  punishment,  in  order  that  jus- 
tice, the  character  of  the  imperial  God,  and  the 
sanctity  and  the  greatness  of  law  might  be  main- 
tained. This  God  was  too  august  and  too  remote 
to  be  immediately  approached.  Only  through 
subalterns  and  intermediaries  could  he  be 
reached.  The  Son  must  intercede  with  the  Fa- 
ther, the  Virgin  Mary  with  the  Son,  the  saints 
with  the  Virgin  Mary,  and  finally  the  priests 
with  the  saints.  Such,  roughly  sketched,  was  the 
system  of  Roman  or  imperial  theology  in  its 
final  development,  as  theologically  organized  by 
AugTistine  and  ecclesiastically  perfected  by  Hil- 
debrand.  It  differed  from  the  Greek  in  that  it 
undertook  to  answer  the  practical  questions, 
How  shall  I  approach  God?  How  shall  I  be  de- 
livered from  the  burden  of  sin?  In  this  respect 
Augustinian  theology  was  a  distinct  advance 
over  Athanasian  or  even  Nicene  theology.  But 
it  borrowed  the  formulas  of  Roman  government 
for  its  answers.  It  did  not  go  with  Christ  to 
the  family  for  a  parable  to  interpret  the  relation 


86      THE  EVOLUTION  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 

of  God  to  humanity;  it  went  to  imperial  Rome. 
Its  God  was  not  an  All-Father,  but  an  infinite 
and  eternal  emperor.  Its  government  was  not 
one  of  redeeming  love,  but  of  imperial,  inexo- 
rable justice.  The  Roman  theology  was  forged 
in  the  same  fires  and  cast  in  the  same  mould  as 
the  Roman  hierarchy ;  and  the  two  must  event- 
ually stand  or  fall  together. 

When  the  Reformation  burst  upon  the  world, 
all  theology  seemed  at  first  to  be  swept  away  by 
this  cyclone  from  the  north.  The  Reformers 
were  charged  with  being  infidels  and  atheists. 
They  were  in  some  measure  iconoclasts.  Their 
movement  was  at  first  partially  destructive.  It 
was  necessary  to  organize  a  new  and  reformed 
theology  to  take  the  place  of  the  old.  Then  it 
was  that  John  Calvin  rose  upon  the  world  with 
his  doctrine  of  divine  sovereignty.  He  was  the 
theological  organizer  of  his  epoch.  His  service 
to  mankind  is  far  more  liable  to  be  underesti- 
mated than  overestimated. 

There  is,  he  said  in  effect,  no  king  but  one ; 
no  father  but  one.  God  alone  is  the  universal 
King,  the  All-Father.  Kings  and  hierarchies 
do  but  play  at  law-making ;  he  is  the  only  Law- 
giver. Crowns  and  thrones  and  chairs  are  but 
toys;  he  is  the  only  crowned  and  enthroned 
and  sceptred  One.  From  him  all  authority 
comes;   in  him   aU   authority  centres;    to  him 


THE  EVOLUTION  OF  THEOLOGY.  87 

all  allegiance  is  clue ;  his  will  is  the  final,  ulti- 
mate, absolute  fact  in  the  universe.  It  cannot 
be  questioned ;  and  from  it  there  is  no  appeal  and 
no  escai^e.  This  is  Calvinism,  the  doctrine  of 
divine  sovereignty;  to  be  read  in  the  light  of 
the  age,  against  whose  dormant  anarchy,  awak- 
ening later  in  the  French  Revolution,  it  was  a 
solemn  protest.  Nor  can  we  say  even  now,  in 
the  United  States  of  America,  with  its  shallow 
doctrine  of  popular  sovereignty,  its  cry  of  Vox 
l)opuli  vox  Dei^  its  egotism  of  democracy,  its 
Dead  Sea  fruit  of  anarchism,  that  there  is  no 
need  to  listen  to  and  heed  this  protest  of  a 
solemn  voice,  reaffirming  the  sublime  doctrine 
of  the  ancient  Hebrew  prophets,  and  itself  re- 
affirmed by  one  of  the  least  religiously  minded 
of  modern  historians."^ 

John  Calvin's  service  to  humanity  can  never 
be  forgotten.     He  was  the  prophet  and  forerim- 

1  "  A  king  or  a  parliament  enacts  a  law,  and  we  imagine  we 
are  creating  some  new  regulation  to  encounter  unprecedented 
circumstances.  The  law  itself  which  is  applied  to  these  cir- 
cumstances was  enacted  from  eternity.  It  has  its  existence 
independent  of  us,  and  will  enforce  itself  either  to  reward  or 
punish,  as  the  attitude  which  we  assume  towards  it  is  wise  or 
unwise.  Our  human  laws  are  but  copies,  more  or  less  imper- 
fect, of  the  eternal  laws  so  far  as  we  can  read  them,  and 
either  succeed  and  promote  our  welfare,  or  fail  and  bring  con- 
fusion and  disaster,  according  as  the  legislator's  insight  has 
detected  the  true  principle,  or  has  been  distorted  by  igno- 
rance or  selfishness."  —  J.   A.  Froude,  Esaai/  on  Calvinism. 


88      THE  EVOLUTION  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 

ner  of  civil  and  religious  liberty.  He  built 
the  bridge  over  which  the  chu^'ch  passed  from  a 
theocratic  imperialism  to  republicanism,  for  he 
showed  that  republicanism  also  might  be  theo- 
cratic. Nor  was  the  doctrine  of  election,  which 
he  borrowed  from  Augustine  and  reaffirmed,  the 
narrow  and  exclusive  doctrine  which  it  has  often 
been  thought  to  be.  It  is  only  in  these  later  days 
that  the  Christian  church  is  beginning  to  believe 
that  "There's  a  wideness  in  God's  mercy  like 
the  wideness  of  the  sea."  It  has  always  believed 
in  a  doctrine  of  election.  The  Jews  believed 
that  God  had  chosen  them  as  his  people  and  had 
passed  by  the  pagans.  The  Koman  Catholic 
church  believed  that  he  chose  the  baptized  as  his 
people  and  passed  by  the  unbaptized.  In  the 
Inferno,  Dante  finds  in  the  outermost  circle  of 
hell  the  good  and  true  of  pagan  nations  who 
have  not  received  baptism.  Calvin  preached  a 
broader  doctrine  of  election  than  that  of  either 
Judaism  or  Romanism.  God  has  chosen,  he 
said,  whom  he  will,  and  whom  he  will  he  passeth 
by.  The  ground  of  his  choice  lies  not  in  the 
accident  of  a  race,  it  lies  not  in  the  chance  of 
a  baj^tism,  it  lies  in  his  own  inscrutable  will. 
And  he  thus  laid  the  foundation  for  the  broader 
doctrine  that  God  has  chosen  the  whole  human 
race,  the  doctrine  of  Paul  that  the  grace  of  God 
is  as  universal  and  inclusive  as  the  sinfulness  of 
humanity. 


THE  EVOLUTION  OF  THEOLOGY.  89 

But  affirming  the  sovereignty  of  God,  John 
Calvin  denied  the  freedom  of  man.  Any  con- 
sistent system  of  philosophy  must  start  either 
from  the  testimony  of  consciousness,  accepting 
thereupon  human  freedom  and  human  responsi- 
bility as  final  and  ultimate  facts,  or  it  must  start 
with  the  universality  of  law  and  the  consequent 
absolute  sovereignty  of  the  lawgiver.  Calvin's 
system  was  self -consistent.  He  declared  that 
man  had  lost  his  freedom  in  the  fall,  and  was  free 
no  more.  Denying  the  freedom  of  man,  he  took 
away  all  incentive  to  activity,  undermined  the 
sense  of  personal  responsibility  by  the  sweeping 
universality  of  his  indictment  of  the  race,  robbed 
the  gospel  of  all  power  to  convict  the  individ- 
ual, and  laid  the  foundation  for  that  philosophy 
of  necessarianism  which  denies  not  only  the  re- 
ality, but  the  possibility,  of  a  religious  or  even 
an  ethical  life.^  This  imperial  theology,  as  in- 
terpreted by  John  Calvin  and  his  great  master 
and  predecessor,  has  been  so  admirably  described 
by  James  Martineau,^  that  I  need  make  no 
apology  for  transferring  his  description  to  my 
pages,  instead  of  essaying  a  description  of  my 
own. 

^  A  man  with  a  criminal  nature  and  education,  under  given 
circumstances  of  temptation,  can  no  more  help  committing 
crime  than  he  could  help  having-  a  headache  under  certain  con- 
ditions of  brain  and  stomach.  —  J.  Cotter  Morison,  2Vie  Ser- 
vice of  Man,  p.  2S9. 

^  Types  of  Ethical  Theory,  Intro,  pp.  17,  18. 


90      THE  EVOLUTION  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 

"The  Augiistinian  theology  is  founded  upon 
a  sense  of  sin  so  passionate  and  absolute  as  to 
plunge  the  conscience  into  unrelieved  shadows. 
It  pledges  itself  to  find  traces  everywhere  of  the 
lost  condition  of  humanity,  in  virtue  of  which 
there  is  no  longer  any  freedom  for  good,  and  a 
hopeless  taint  is  mingled  with  the  very  springs 
of  our  activity.  This  doctrine  is  evidently  the 
utterance  of  a  deep  but  despairing  moral  aspira- 
tion :  it  estimates  with  such  stern  purity  the  de- 
mands of  the  divine  holiness  upon  us,  that  only 
the  first  man,  fresh  with  unspoiled  powers,  was 
capable  of  fulfilling  them;  and  since  he  was 
false,  the  sole  opportunity  of  voluntary  holiness 
has  been  thrown  away,  and  we  must  live  in  hope- 
less knowledge  of  obligations  which  we  cannot 
discharge.  Hence  there  has  never  been  more 
than  one  solitary  hour  of  real  probation  for  the 
human  race ;  during  that  hour  there  was  a  posi- 
tive trust  committed  to  a  capable  will,  and  the 
young  world  was  under  genuine  moral  adminis- 
tration ;  but,  ever  since,  evil  only  has  been  pos- 
sible to  human  volition,  and  good  can  pass  no 
further  than  our  dreams.  It  follows  that,  as 
the  human  game  is  already  lost,  we  no  longer 
live  a  probationary  life,  and  can  have  no  doc- 
trine of  applied  ethics  which  shall  have  the 
slightest  religious  value ;  the  moralities,  consid- 
ered as  divine,  are  obsolete  as  Eden ;  and  human 


THE  EVOLUTION  OF  THEOLOGY.  91 

nature,  as  it  is,  can  produce  no  voluntary  acts 
that  are  not  relatively  neutral,  because  uni- 
formly offensive,  to  the  sentiment  of  God.  Its 
restoration  must  proceed  from  sources  extra- 
neous to  the  will;  and  unless  snatched  away  in 
some  fiery  chariot  of  grace,  it  must  gaze  in 
vain  upon  the  heaven  that  spreads  its  awful 
beauty  above  the  earth.  Thus  a  doctrine  which 
begins  with  the  highest  proclamation  of  the  di- 
vine moral  law  ends  with  practically  supersed- 
ing it.  The  history  of  the  universe  opens  with 
an  act  of  probation  and  closes  with  one  of  re- 
tribution, but  through  every  intervening  mo- 
ment is  destitute  of  moral  conditions,  and  man, 
the  central  figure  of  the  whole,  —  though  a 
stately  actor  at  the  first,  and  an  infinite  recipient 
or  victim  at  the  last,  —  so  falls  through  in  the 
meanwhile  between  the  powers  that  tempt  and 
those  that  save  him,  that  as  an  ethical  agent  he 
sinks  into  nonentity,  and  becomes  the  mere  prize 
contended  for  by  the  spirits  of  darkness  and  of 
light.  In  this  system  the  human  personality, 
by  the  very  intensity  with  which  it  burns  at  its 
own  focus,  consumes  itself  away;  and  the  very 
attempt  to  idealize  the  severity  and  sanctity  of 
the  divine  law  does  but  cancel  it  from  the  act- 
ual, and  banish  it  to  the  beginning  and  end  of 
time.  The  man  of  to-day  is  no  free  individual- 
ity at  all,  but  the  mere  meeting  point  of  opposite 


92      THE  EVOLUTION  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 

forces  foreign  to  his  will ;  ruined  by  nature,  res- 
cued by  God,  —  with  no  range  of  power,  there- 
fore none  of  responsibility  between." 

The  Roman  or  imperial  system  of  religious 
doctrine,  known  sometimes  from  its  origin  as 
Latin  theology,  sometimes  from  its  two  greatest 
representatives  as  Augustinian  or  as  Calvinistic 
theology,  sometimes  from  its  legal  character  as 
forensic  theology,  passed  from  Geneva  into  Eng- 
land, and  from  England  and  Scotland  to  New 
England  and  so  became  the  Puritan  theology.  It 
is  august,  but  terrible;  and  equally  worthy  of 
the  student's  attention  from  the  elements  which 
it  contained  and  those  which  it  omitted.  It  put 
an  end  forever  to  the  polytheism  which  had  per- 
vaded Europe;  it  depersonified  nature,  brought 
it  into  subjection  to  man,  and  made  its  pheno- 
mena no  longer  an  object  of  terror  but  of  utility ; 
it  gave  a  ground  for  and  a  sanctity  to  law,  in  its 
presentation  of  the  divine  Lawgiver;  it  laid  a 
foundation  for  liberty  by  discovering  a  sanction 
for  law  in  the  universal  conscience ;  it  empha- 
sized the  reality  and  awfulness  of  sin,  and  the 
necessity  of  repentance  and  a  new  life.  But  it 
forgot  that  God  is  love,  and  knew  him  only  as 
power;  it  made  both  law  and  revelation  exter- 
nal to  man,  not  a  power  and  a  vision  within 
him ;  it  made  religion  obedience  to  a  government 
from    without,   not    a  new  life    working  from 


THE  EVOLUTION  OF  THEOLOGY.  93 

within ;  it  made  the  church,  and  later  the  Bible, 
an  authority  imposed  on  men,  not  a  voice  evok- 
ing in  the  conscience  a  divine  authority  within ; 
and  it  denied  the  liberty  of  the  individual  will, 
and  so  destroyed  the  sense  of  moral  responsibil- 
ity, paralyzed  Christian  activities,  and  fatally 
failed  in  the  great  work  of  a  Christian  theo- 
logy, that  of  promoting  a  missionary  spirit. 
The  great  missionary  movements  which  charac- 
terize the  latter  part  of  the  nineteenth  century 
originated  in  the  Moravian  and  the  Methodist 
churches,  each  of  them  distinctively  anti-Cal- 
vinistic. 

As  the  same  social  and  intellectual  forces 
which  created  the  Roman  hierarchy  created  the 
Roman  theology,  so  the  revival  of  intellectual 
and  spiritual  life,  which  emancipated  the  church 
from  the  former,  is  emancipating  the  church 
from  the  latter.  This  emancipation  it  should  be 
our  aim  to  facilitate,  not  to  retard;  but  so  to 
direct  that  it  shall  be  an  evolution,  not  a  revolu- 
tion. The  theology  of  the  future  ought  to  retain 
all  of  the  truth  which  was  successively  contributed 
by  Oriental,  by  Greek,  and  by  Roman  thought; 
for  in  the  evolution  of  Christian  theology,  each 
of  these  three  phases  of  thought  made  a  valu- 
able addition  to  the  religious  life  of  Christen- 
dom, —  an  addition  which  we  cannot  afford 
to  despise   and   cast  away.     Oriental   thought 


94      THE  EVOLUTION  OF  CHKISTIANITY, 

emphasized  the  transcendently  important  truth 
that  spirit  is  more  than  matter,  and  is  superior 
over  matter,  —  a  truth  preeminently  needed  in 
this  age,  which  lives  by  sight  and  scoffs  at  faith. 
Spiritual  perception  is  as  much  to  be  trusted  as 
sensual  perception.  We  see  moral  truths  as 
really  as  we  see  material  substance,  distinctions 
between  right  and  wrong  as  truly  as  distinctions 
between  red  and  yellow.  Moral  blindness  is 
much  more  rare  than  color  blindness.  And 
if  it  be  true  that  the  world  of  sense  is  real,  it 
is  equally  true  that  it  is  not  the  only  reality. 
Greek  thought  emphasized  the  truth  that  re- 
ligion is  rational,  that  all  its  articles  of  faith 
are  consonant  with  each  other  and  with  reason ; 
and  it  prepared  the  way  for  the  construction  of 
a  self-consistent  system  of  religious  thought,  a 
system  which  in  all  its  parts  would  realize  the 
fundamental  truth  that  there  is  possible  such  a 
perception  of  the  Infinite  as  will  naturally  influ- 
ence the  mind  and  moral  nature  of  men.  It 
emphasized  the  truth  of  the  divine  immanence; 
that  God  is  in  his  world  of  nature  and  in  his 
world  of  men;  and  that  he  has  manifested  him- 
self in  the  one  unique  and  incomparable  Man; 
and  in  all  history  by  his  Spirit  speaking  to  and 
with  men ;  that  he  is  in  the  world  revealing  him- 
self to  the  world,  and  by  that  revelation  redeem- 
ing the  world  and  making  it  a  partaker  of  his 


THE  EVOLUTION  OF  THEOLOGY.  95 

nature.  Roman  thougM  emphasized  the  truth 
that  God  is  transcendent ;  that  he  is  not  nature 
nor  humanity,  and,  though  in  nature  and  in  hu- 
manity, yet  transcends  both ;  that  law  is  divine ; 
that  man  can  neither  make  nor  unmake  it,  but 
only  discover  and  apply  it ;  and  that  sin  is  not 
a  mere  unripeness  or  immaturity,  but  a  real 
and  willful  transgression  of  a  real  law,  known 
and  approved,  though  violated,  by  the  sinner. 
Thus  all  three  theologies  contributed  something 
toward  the  theology  of  the  future :  Orientalism, 
the  reality  of  the  spiritual  and  its  corollaries; 
Grecism,  the  divine  immanence  and  its  corol- 
laries; Romanism,  the  divine  transcendence  and 
its  corollaries.  The  modern  evolution  of  theo- 
logical thought,  popularly  known  as  the  New 
Theology,  is  partly  a  continuation  of  these 
three  elements  in  a  new  and  larger  system  of 
thought  than  either  one  singly,  and  partly  a  re- 
vulsion from  the  purely  scholastic  and  forensic 
questions  of  Greek  and  Roman  thought  to  the 
more  practical  and  spiritual  questions  of  Hebraic 
thought :  How  shall  I  find  God  ?  How  get  rid 
of  sin?     How  utilize  suffering? 

How  this  New  Theology  has  been  developed 
out  of  the  Old,  by  that  incursion  of  Teutonic 
life  and  thought  into  Latin  and  Greek  Chris- 
tianity which  led  to  the  Reformation,  will  be  the 
subject  of  consideration  in  the  next  chapter. 


/ 


CHAPTER  IV. 

THE  EVOLUTION  OF  THEOLOGY  (CONTINUED). 

The  New  Theology, 

The  Lutheran  Reformation  was  a  North- 
Euro]3e  reaction  against  Roman  imperialism, 
the  protest  of  the  Germanic  race  against  eccle- 
siastical Caesarism;  a  great  intellectual  and 
spiritual  awakening,  due  to  a  new  interpreta- 
tion of  Christianity  by  a  people  whose  nature  and 
traditions  were  individualistic.  Its  birthplace 
was  Germany;  its  inspiration  was  Teutonic. 

Almost  simultaneously  with  the  protests 
against  the  j^apal  authority  and  the  demand  for 
an  open  Bible  were  the  discovery  of  a  Western 
continent  and  a  quickened  commerce,  the  inven- 
tion of  the  printing-press  and  a  revival  and  en- 
largement of  literature,  the  birth  of  the  scien- 
tific spirit  and  its  application  both  to  theoretical 
science  and  to  the  practical  arts.  Shakespeare 
and  Cervantes,  Gutenberg  and  Albert  Diirer, 
Columbus  and  Copernicus,  Loyola  and  Calvin, 
Xavier  and  Luther,  were  almost  contemporaries. 
The  first  post-office,  the  first  printing-press,  the 


THE  EVOLUTION  OF  THEOLOGY.  97 

first  telescope,  the  first  spinning-wheel,  were  all 
nearly  contemporaneous  with  the  first  open  Bible 
and  the  first  freedom  of  religious  speech.  These 
are  not  accidents.  In  history  there  are  no  acci- 
dents. The  predominant  principle  of  the  Re- 
formation, —  the  right  of  private  judgment,  — 
was  more  than  a  religious  principle;  certainly 
it  had  much  more  than  a  theological  application. 
It  was  a  revolt  against  authority.  It  threw 
humanity  back  upon  its  own  resources.  Eights 
are  duties;  and  the  right  of  private  judgment 
laid  upon  mankind  the  duty  of  original  investi- 
gation and  inquiry.  This  right  had  first  to  be 
taught  to  man,  who  is  always  reluctant  to  take 
up  a  new  right  if  it  impose  a  new  duty.  The 
opportunity  to  exercise  it  had  to  be  won  in 
many  a  hard  battle.  It  involved  the  wars  in 
the  Netherlands,  the  massacres  in  France,  the 
civil  wars  in  England.  It  cannot  be  said  to  be 
undisputed  even  now. 

But  by  the  beginning  of  the  present  century 
in  all  Protestant  Europe,  and  even  in  most  of 
Roman  Catholic  Europe,  the  right  of  man  to 
think  for  himself  had  been  established.  It  is 
still  denied ;  it  is  still  punished  with  ecclesias- 
tical pains  and  penalties;  but  it  no  longer  in- 
volves a  hazard  of  life  or  limb.  With  the  pre- 
sent century  there  began,  therefore,  a  new  era 
of   intellectual   activity,    an   era   of   individual 


98     THE  EVOLUTION  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 

and  independent  thinking.  Authority  was  dis- 
carded; not  religious  authority  only,  but  all 
authority  over  intellectual  processes.  The  mind 
may  be  fettered,  or  it  may  be  free,  but  it  cannot 
long  be  partly  fettered  and  partly  free.  Free- 
dom is  indivisible;  and  the  right  to  think  in 
either  science,  politics,  or  religion  carried  with 
it  necessarily  the  right  to  think  in  each  of  the 
other  departments  of  thought.  Liberty  to  in- 
vestigate led  to  investigation.  The  Baconian 
philosophy  was  a  natural  and  necessary  produc- 
tion of  the  Lutheran  Reformation;  and  a  new 
science  of  life  was  the  natural  and  necessary 
production  of  the  Baconian  philosophy.  A 
fresh  investigation  was  made  into  history.  Rec- 
ords that  had  been  unquestioned  were  subject  to 
scrutiny.  Niebuhr  gave  the  world  a  new  com- 
prehension, not  merely  of  Roman  events,  but  of 
all  ancient  history.  Stories  that  had  passed 
current  for  generations  were  subjected  to  a  free, 
not  to  say  an  irreverent  scrutiny.  William 
Tell  was  declared  to  be  a  myth.  Literature 
fared  no  better.  Homer  was  abolished,  and  the 
Homeric  ballads  were  attributed  to  an  imper- 
sonal epoch.  Shakespeare  was  reduced  from 
the  rank  of  a  poet  to  that  of  an  actor,  and 
his  plays  were  variously  attributed  to  Bacon  and 
to  anonymous  authors.  Scientific  theories  which 
tradition  had  stamped  as  current   coin   in  the 


THE  EVOLUTION  OF  THEOLOGY.  99 

intellectual  realm  were  cast  into  the  melting-pot 
for  a  new  assay.  Some  radical  errors  were  dis- 
covered; and  each  discovery  made  easier  the 
work  of  the  critic.  Every  hypothesis  was  sub- 
jected to  suspicion.  The  whole  body  of  scien- 
tific tradition  was  swept  away  by  the  same  spirit 
which  refused  to  own  allegiance  to  ecclesiastical 
tradition.  The  scientific  Talmuds  were  put  away 
on  the  shelf  as  antique  curiosities;  and  the 
world  began  an  independent  and  direct  investi- 
gation of  phenomena,  sometimes  incited  thereto 
by  a  spirit  of  iconoclastic  egotism  wholly  un- 
scientific, but  in  the  main  inspired  by  a  noble 
curiosity,  an  appetite  for  the  truth.  Harvey's 
discovery  of  the  circulation  of  the  blood  led  to 
a  new  physiology;  a  new  botany,  a  new  astro- 
nomy, and  a  new  biology  followed.  In  the  ma- 
terial sciences  the  text-books  of  ten  years  ago 
are  already  out  of  date. 

The  students  of  psychology  were  the  last  to 
catch  the  new  spirit  of  the  age ;  but  they  were 
not  and  could  not  be  impervious  to  it.  Plato  was 
for  a  while  closed,  though  we  are  beginning  to 
open  him  again ;  and  the  scholars,  turning  aside 
from  a  study  of  what  other  scholars  had  said 
about  man,  began  to  study  man  himself.  Gall, 
Spurzheim,  and  Combe  discovered  the  intimate 
relations  of  mind  and  brain,  and  developed  a  sci- 
ence of  organology  which,  if  it  is  somewhat  crude 


100      THE  EVOLUTION  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 

and  has  sometimes  been  diverted  to  purposes  of 
traveling  charlatans,  yet  represents  a  profound 
truth  which  science  is  tardily  beginning  to  recog- 
nize. Sir  William  Hamilton  set  an  example  of 
direct  study  of  consciousness  which  modern  psy- 
chology is  carrying  forward  with  valuable  results. 
It  would  have  been  strange  indeed  if  the  reaction 
against  the  despotic  authority  of  tradition  had 
not  produced  some  unhealthy  contemj)t  for  it, 
and  this  doubtless  was  the  case ;  but  we  are  get- 
ting beyond  this  first  stage  of  the  new  era,  and 
the  sober-minded  thinkers  in  all  departments 
agree  in  condemning  nihilism  as  no  better  in 
science  or  religion  than  in  politics,  and  in  com- 
mending the  aphorism  of  Mr.  Gladstone,  "No 
greater  calamity  can  happen  to  a  people  than  to 
break  utterly  with  its  past." 

It  would  have  been  equally  strange  if  the  im- 
pulse to  original  investigation  and  independent 
judgment  which  was  derived  from  the  religious 
life  had  not  in  turn  affected  religious  thought; 
if,  having  learned  in  the  school  of  conscience  the 
right  and  duty  of  private  judgment,  mankind 
had  made  no  attempt  to  exercise  it  in  measuring 
the  truth  and  value  of  all  religious  tradition ;  if, 
renouncing  the  authority  of  the  ancient  church, 
it  had  bowed  submissively  to  the  authority  of  the 
more  modern  one ;  if,  in  disowning  the  supremacy 
of  the  creeds  of  the  past,   it  had  not  also  dis- 


THE  EVOLUTION  OF  THEOLOGY.        101 

owned  the  supremacy  of  creeds  fresh  from  the 
press;  nay,  if  in  its  reaction,  the  same  spirit 
of  somewhat  iconoclastic  skepticism,  which  had 
repudiated  Homer,  should  not  also  show  itself 
in  discussions  respecting  the  Hebrew  Scriptures. 
It  was  in  the  nature  of  things  impossible  that 
there  should  be  a  New  Science,  a  New  Politics, 
and  a  New  Philosophy,  and  not  also  a  New  The- 
ology. The  one  is  no  more  to  be  dreaded  than 
the  other;  and  the  philosophic  mind  will  be 
equally  unready  in  each  instance  to  rush  to  the 
conclusion  that  the  new  is  wholly  true  or  wholly 
false. 

At  all  events,  as  matter  of  historic  fact,  the 
same  spirit  of  independent  thought  which  set 
men  to  original  investigation  of  the  phenomena 
of  vegetable,  animal,  social,  and  political  life 
moved  another  class  of  thinkers  to  an  indepen- 
dent investigation  of  the  sources  of  religious 
truth  and  life;  and  as  Protestants  regarded  the 
Bible  as  one  of  these  original  sources,  if  not  the 
chief  source,  the  beginning  of  the  present  cen- 
tury witnessed  in  all  Protestant  Christendom  the 
beginning  of  an  original,  systematic,  and  enthu- 
siastic study  of  the  Bible.  It  had  been  studied 
before,  but  never  with  the  same  spirit  mani- 
fested in  the  same  degree.  It  was  now  for  the 
first  time  a  study  of  independent  investigation. 
Biblical  criticism   assumed    a  new   significance 


102      THE  EVOLUTION  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 

and  a  new  importance.  The  question  of  the 
authorship  and  composition  o£  the  books  of  the 
Bible,  the  object  of  the  writers,  the  circum- 
stances under  which  they  wrote,  the  audiences 
to  which  they  spoke,  have  been  studied  anew  and 
with  valuable  results.  The  libraries  of  Europe 
and  even  the  monasteries  of  the  East  have  been 
ransacked  for  manuscripts,  and  the  manuscripts 
themselves  have  been  collated  and  compared 
with  an  enthusiasm  and  a  painstaking  far  greater 
than  that  bestowed  on  any  secular  writers  of 
equal  antiquity.  The  writings  have  been  sub- 
jected to  a  minute  and  even  a  microscopic  crit- 
ical examination,  and  a  more  comprehensive 
study  of  their  general  tenor  has  not  been  neg- 
lected. In  the  theological  seminaries,  at  first  in 
Germany,  then  in  our  own  country,  a  new  de- 
partment of  "  Biblical  Theology  "  has  been  estab- 
lished, and  the  departments  of  Biblical  Exegesis 
and  Biblical  Theology  are  coming  to  hold  a  place 
equal  with,  if  not  superior  to,  that  of  Systematic 
Theology,  which  had  before  dominated  every 
seminary.  New  translations  of  the  Scriptures 
have  sprung  up  in  every  land;  and  these  have 
proved  themselves  in  England  and  America  fore- 
runners of  a  new  revision  of  the  English  ver- 
sion, undertaken  by  representatives  of  the  entire 
Protestant  church.  Its  scholarly  qualities  are 
indubitable,   whatever   objections  to  it  may  be 


THE  EVOLUTION  OF  THEOLOGY.        103 

made  by  a  conservative  spirit  or  a  literary  taste. 
A  new  class  of  commentators  on  the  Scriptures 
has  arisen,  and  a  new  class  of  commentaries 
has  superseded  their  more  polemical  and  less 
independent  predecessors.  Meyer  in  Germany, 
Godet  in  France,  and  Alford  in  England  may 
not  be  abler  as  thinkers  than  Augustine  or 
Calvin;  but  their  spirit  is  radically  different. 
They  attempt  neither  to  interpret  Scripture  in 
harmony  with  a  preconceived  theological  system, 
nor  even  to  deduce  a  theological  system  from 
Scripture  —  hardly  to  prove  that  it  is  self -con- 
sistent and  harmonious.  They  simply  endeavor 
to  show  the  reader  what  the  language  of  the 
sacred  writers,  properly  interpreted,  means,  and 
leave  him  to  deduce  his  own  system.^  Finally, 
the  whole  Protestant  church  in  Europe  and 
America  agreed  upon  a  course  of  study  of  the 
Bible  in  the  Sabbath-schools,  in  a  series  of  pre- 
arranged lessons ;  and  so  wide  is  the  interest  in 
this  cou^e  of  Bible  study  that  every  religious 
newspaper,  and  some  secular  papers,  print  every 
week  a  commentary  on  the  current  lesson.  These 
helps  are  naturally  not  always  very  scholarly, 

1  A  striking  illustration  of  this  is  offered  by  Dean  Alford's 
frank  declaration  that  there  is  no  authority  in  the  New  Testa- 
ment for  the  doctrine  of  apostolic  succession.  With  this  con- 
trast Calvin's  constant  thrust  at  the  papacy  in  his  Commenta- 
ries, which  are  as  polemically  Protestant  as  are  his  Institutes. 


104      THE  EVOLUTION  OF  CHBISTIANITY. 

the  study  in  the  Sabbath-school  is  not  always 
very  thorough,  and  the  selection  of  the  lessons 
themselves  is  not  above  criticism;  but  the  fact 
that  several  millions  of  children  are  simultane- 
ously engaged  in  a  weekly  study  of  the  Bible, 
and  that  this  Bible  study  has  very  generally 
usurped  the  place  allotted  a  hundred  years  ago, 
or  even  less,  to  the  catechism,  is  significant  of 
the  movement  of  the  century  away  from  tradi- 
tional authority  towards  independent  investiga- 
tion in  theology,  as  in  all  other  sciences.  More 
important  than  all  is  the  concentrated  attention 
which  this  study  of  the  church  has  directed  to- 
wards the  life  and  character  of  Christ.  One  has 
only  to  compare  Fleetwood's  "Life  of  Christ" 
with  any  one  of  those  which  are  to  be  found  to- 
day upon  any  minister's  book-shelves  to  perceive 
the  difference  in  the  theological  spirit  of  the 
eighteenth  and  the  nineteenth  centuries.  The 
past  haK-century  has  produced  above  a  score 
of  Lives  of  Christ.^  Without  concord  of  ac- 
tion they  have  appeared  almost  simultaneously 
in  Germany,  France,  Holland,  England,  and 
America.  They  have  been  written  by  Jews, 
nationalists,  Liberal  Christians,  and  strict  Cal- 
vinists;  they  represent  every  attitude  of  mind 
—  the  coldly  critical  in  Strauss,  the  rationalistic 

1 1  count  on  my  own  shelves  twenty-five  separate  Lives  of 
Christ ;  and  of  course  my  collection  is  far  from  complete. 


THE  EVOLUTION  OF  THEOLOGY.         105 

but  reverent  in  Hooykaas,  the  dramatic  and 
imaginative  in  Renan,  the  critically  orthodox  in 
Lange  and  Ebrard,  the  historical  and  scholarly 
in  Geikie  and  Edersheim,  the  devout  and  popu- 
lar in  Beecher,  Hanna,  and  Farrar.  It  thus 
appears,  from  a  merely  cursory  survey  of  the 
history  of  religious  thought  since  the  beginning 
of  the  present  century,  that  the  entire  church 
has  been  engaged,  to  an  extent  never  known 
before,  and  in  a  spirit  never  possible  before,  in  a 
study  of  the  Bible,  and  especially  of  the  life  of 
Christ.  This  study  has  been  pursued  by  every 
school  of  thought  and  by  every  type  of  mind : 
by  the  rationalist  and  the  orthodox,  the  critical 
and  the  devotional,  the  textual  and  the  theo- 
logical, the  gray-haired  professor  and  the  infant- 
class.  And  all  of  every  age  and  every  school 
have  been  engaged,  though  doubtless  in  differ- 
ent degrees  both  of  independence  and  earnest- 
ness, in  an  original  investigation  of  the  source  of 
Christian  truth  and  life,  and  with  a  purpose  to 
ascertain  for  themselves,  and  from  the  original 
sources,  what  are  Christian  truth  and  Christian 
life,  as  interpreted  by  Christ  and  his  immedi- 
ate disciples. 

Now  it  is  impossible  that  such  a  study  could 
have  been  pursued  for  over  half  a  century  and 
not  give  us  something  new  in  both  theology  and 
ethics.     It  is  impossible  that  such  an  intellectual 


106     THE  EVOLUTION  OF  CHBISTIANITY. 

activity  should  exist  and  not  produce  some  new 
and  profound  convictions,  some  new  and  clear 
apprehensions,  and  some  new  and  crude  notions 
which  further  study  pursued  in  the  same  spirit 
will  eventually  correct.  If  half  a  century  of 
study  of  the  Bible  —  if,  especially,  half  a  century 
of  study  of  the  life  and  teachings  of  Jesus  of 
Nazareth  —  did  nothing  to  give  the  Christian 
student  a  clearer  vision,  a  wider  horizon,  and  a 
larger  faith,  hope,  and  charity,  we  might  well 
begin  to  doubt  whether  either  the  Bible  was  the 
book,  or  Christ  the  person,  we  had  thought; 
whether  they  were  not  correct  who  tell  us  that 
the  world  has  outgrown  the  teaching  of  the  one 
and  the  example  of  the  other.     If  I  have  read 

/  aright  the  signs  of  the  times,  what  is  called  the 
New  Theology  is  not,  properly  speaking,  a  the- 
ology at  all ;  it  is  certainly  not  a  New  England 
notion  nor  a  German  importation.  It  is  the 
spirit  of  original  investigation,  characteristic  of 
the  age,  applied  to  the  elucidation  of  the  prob- 
lems of  religious  thought  and  life;  it  is  a  desire 
for  a  clearer  understanding  of  the  Christianity 

y  of  Jesus  Christ,  and  a  quest  for  it  in  the  ori- 
ginal sources  of  information. 

This  new  life  led  to  certain  sporadic  protests 
against  the  Roman  or  forensic  or  Puritan  the- 
ology, but  these  movements  were  both  partial 
and  local.     The  church  of  the  New  Jerusalem, 


THE  EVOLUTION  OF  THEOLOGY.        107 

popularly  known  from  its  founder  as  Sweclen- 
borgianism,  reintroduced  into  Christian  theology 
some  of  the  best  elements  of  Orientalism :  reem- 
phasized  the  reality  of  the  spiritual  life ;  gave  a 
more  spiritual  conception  to  heaven  and  hell; 
demanded  that  the  Bible  be  read  as  a  spiritual 
revelation,  not  as  a  book  of  external  laws ;  and 
was  emphatic  in  its  declaration  that  character  is 
salvation,  and  that  there  is  and  can  be  no  other. 
In  a  different  form  the  same  aspect  of  truth 
was  received  and  emphasized  by  the  Friends  or 
Quakers.  Methodism,  born  of  the  earlier  Mo- 
ravianism,  studying  life  from  the  point  of  view 
of  human  consciousness,  accepted  its  testimony 
to  human  freedom,  and  by  affirming  what  Calvin 
had  denied,  that  man  can  repent  and  turn  to 
God,  gave  a  new  and  vital  sense  of  sin,  furnished 
a  ground  of  responsibility,  and  inspired  a  new 
hope  of  life  in  man  who  had  been  made  apathetic 
by  the  teachings  of  fatalism.  The  subsequent 
Oxford  movement  created  simultaneously  in 
the  Anglican  Church  two  counter-currents :  one, 
reacting  from  the  inconsistent  position  of  semi- 
Protestantism,  led  back  to  the  imperialism  of 
Rome,  —  its  hierarchical  authority,  its  ecclesi- 
astical system,  and  its  theological  dogmatism; 
the  other,  carrying  Protestantism  forward  to  its 
logical  conclusion,  led  on  to  the  doctrine  that 
God  is  a  living  God,  that  all  men  are  his  chil- 


108      THE  EVOLUTION  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 

dren,  that  in  every  man  is  a  capacity  to  hear 
God's  voice  and  to  receive  his  guidance,  that  the 
sj^iritual  consciousness  may  be  trusted,  and  is  in 
the  last  analysis  the  seat  of  authority  in  religion. 
And  finally,  in  Puritan  England  and  New 
England,  arose  Universalism  and  Unitarianism, 
necessary  products  by  reaction  against  the  Puri- 
tan theologies:  the  one  affirmed  with  Calvin 
that  God  can  make  all  men  righteous,  and  con- 
cluded with  inexorable  logic  that  he  will,  else 
he  would  not  be  a  righteous  God;  the  other  de- 
nied the  Augustinian  doctrine  of  native  deprav- 
ity, and  declared  that  man  is  by  creation  a  Son 
of  God ;  and  from  this  premise  its  more  advanced 
section,  by  a  natural  though  not  necessary  pro- 
cess of  reasoning,  passed  on  to  deny  altogether 
any  necessity  for  a  redemption  divinely  revealed, 
divinely  authenticated,  and  operating  with  di- 
vine efficacy,  to  bring  men  into  true  filial  rela- 
tions with  God.  These  five  movements,  the 
Swedenborgian,  the  Friends,  the  Methodist,  the 
Broad  Church,  and  the  Unitarian  and  Univer- 
salist,  all  of  them  drawing  more  or  less  from 
Oriental  and  Greek  sources,  have  contributed  to 
make  that  modern  revolution  in  thought  which 
is  miscalled  the  New  Theology. 

Not  less,  perhaps  more  potent  than  all,  has 
been  the  influence  of  modern  social  and  political 
life.     That     is     characteristically    democratic; 


THE  EVOLUTION  OF  THEOLOGY.        109 

not  only  in  government,  but  in  the  arts  and 
sciences,  in  education,  and  in  religion.  And  an 
imperial  theology  cannot  permanently  remain 
unmodified  in  a  democratic  society. 

Nevertheless,  this  so-called  New  Theology  is 
neither  new  nor  a  theology.  It  is  not  absolutely 
but  only  relatively  new,  —  new  only  in  contrast 
with  the  Puritan  theology  out  of  which  it  has 
sprung,  and  from  which  it  is  a  reaction.  It  is 
not  truly  a  theology,  since  its  chief  inspiration 
is  a  deep  desire  to  get  away  from  the  questions 
of  the  purely  speculative  intellect,  the  answers 
to  which  constitute  theology,  to  the  practical 
questions  of  the  Hebrew  seers,  the  answers  to 
which  constitute  religion.  It  may  be  roughly  de- 
scribed as  largely  composed  of  three  elements :  a 
renaissance  of  Greek  thought;  a  revival  of  the 
Hebraic  spirit;  and  a  spirit  of  hiunanism  due 
to  apparently  triumphant  democracy.  Without 
attempting  in  this  chapter  to  distinguish  the 
various  elements  which  have  contributed  to  pro- 
ducing it,  I  endeavor  here  to  give  briefly  its 
most  characteristic  features,  describing  what  it 
aims  to  be  rather  than  what  it  is,  that  is,  de- 
scribing it  as  a  tendency  rather  than  as  a  fin- 
ished product. 

The  church,  then,  is  coming  more  and  more  to 
conceive  of  God,  not  as  some  one  outside  of  his 
creation  ruling  over  it,  but  as  some  one  inside 


110      THE  EVOLUTION  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 

his  creation  ruling  within  it.  In  its  material  ap- 
plications this  is  a  familiar  truth  —  God  not  a 
mechanic  who  has  built  an  engine  and  stands  in 
the  locomotive  and  holds  the  lever,  turning  off  or 
on  the  steam,  and  regulating  the  machine  as  he 
will ;  but  God  a  spirit,  and  as  a  spirit  indwelling 
in  all  that  he  has  made.  The  organist  sits  at  the 
instrument  and  plays  upon  it.  He  is  not  the 
organ.  He  ministers  it,  directs  it,  controls  it. 
Presently  he  stops.  The  quartet  rise  and  sing. 
They  also  use  organs.  Their  own  throats  are  the 
organs  they  use,  and  they  can  put  into  their 
music  far  more  of  their  real  spirit,  because  they 
are  using  themselves,  than  he  can  who  uses  but 
the  tubes  of  tin  or  of  wood.  Now,*  we  are  com- 
ing to  think  of  God  as  dwelling  in  nature  as 
the  spirit  dwells  in  the  body.  Not  that  God 
and  nature  are  identical;  he  transcends  nature 
as  I  transcend  my  body,  and  am  more  than  my 
body,  and  shall  live  on  when  my  body  is  dust 
and  ashes;  nevertheless  now  ruling  not  over 
my  body,  but  in  my  body.  We  are  also  com- 
ing to  think  of  God  as  ruling,  not  only  in  phy- 
sical nature,  but  in  a  somewhat  similar  man- 
ner in  human  nature.  The  king  rules  over 
his  subjects.  The  father  rules  iii  his  children. 
The  Czar  of  the  Russias  does  not  know  those 
that  are  subject  to  his  authority.  He  issues 
his  laws.     They  are  sent  out  every  whither  by 


THE  EVOLUTION  OF  THEOLOGY.        Ill 

messengers,  and  executed  by  subordinates.  He 
does  not  and  cannot  put  himself  into  the  Eus- 
sians.  All  he  can  do  is  to  tell  them  what  they 
must  do.  He  cannot  transform  them  into  a  like- 
ness of  himself.  But  the  father,  just  in  the 
measure  that  he  is  a  father,  can  do  this.  He 
uses  authority  only  as  a  means  to  this  end.  He 
does  not  say  to  his  child,  Thou  shalt  and  Thou 
shalt  not,  any  further  than  the  infirmity  of  his 
nature  compels  him  to  do  it.  He  puts  his 
own  nature  into  his  children.  They  do  not  say, 
My  father  has  made  this  law,  I  must  obey  it 
or  suffer;  but  they  come  to  think  as  he  thinks, 
feel  as  he  feels,  love  what  he  loves,  have  the 
ambition  that  he  possesses,  the  purity  that  he 
possesses,  the  hoj)es  and  purposes  that  he  pos- 
sesses; they  become,  as  we  say,  "chips  of  the 
old  block."  Thus  the  new  doctrine  of  divine 
sovereignty  transcends  the  older  doctrine.  The 
conception  of  God  that  is  in  man  surpasses  the 
conception  of  God  over  man.  The  doctrine  of 
evolution  is  not  atheistic.  The  conception  of 
God  in  nature  and  in  hmnanity  does  not  remove 
God  from  himianity.  In  olden  times  the  Jews 
once  a  year  went  up  to  the  great  Temple  to  see 
their  King ;  subsequently  once  a  week  to  the  syn- 
agogue to  see  their  King.  But  the  child  of  God 
lives  not  under  a  king  whom  he  can  go  to  see 
only  once  a  year  or  once  a  week;  he  lives  with 


112      THE  EVOLVTIOX  OF  CIIEISTIAXITY. 

his  Father;  the  child's  life  is  the  Father's  life, 
and  the  child's  will  is  nau2;ht  save  as  he  brino^s 
it  into  subjection,  in  every  thought,  every  desii'e, 
every  aspiration,  to  the  Father's  will.  What 
does  the  bride  mean  when  she  promises  to  ohci/ 
her  husband?  That  the  wife  is  to  be  the  serf 
and  the  husband  is  to  rule  OfTr  her?  Xol  But 
that  in  the  royal  realm  of  love  the  vriie  ^^'ill 
merge  her  will  with  her  husband's  will,  so  that, 
as  life  flows  on,  these  two  wills  will  become  one 
will  in  the  loyalty  of  love.  The  church  is  not 
the  servant,  it  is  the  bride  of  God. 

This  new  conception  of  God,  as  immanent  in 
nature,  is  necessarily  accompanied  by  a  new  con- 
ception of  law  and  miracles.  Eather,  we  are 
going  back  to  the  Xew  Testament  conception 
and  defijiition  of  miracles.  They  are  no  longer 
regarded  as  violations  of  natural  law,  or  even  as 
suspensions  of  natural  law.  Indeed,  in  sti'ict- 
ness  of  speech,  in  the  view  of  this  philosophy, 
there  are  no  natural  laws  to  be  A^iolated  or  sus- 
pended. There  is  only  one  Force,  that  is  God; 
law  is  but  the  habit  of  God's  action;  miracles, 
are^but  the  manifestation  of  his  power  and  pres- 
ence in  unexpected  actions,  demonstrating  the 
existence  of  an  intelligent  Will  and  Power 
superior  to  that  of  man.  I  say  that  this  is  a 
recurrence  to  the  Xew  Testament  conception  and 
definition  of  miracles,  for  the  writers  of  the  Xew 


THE  EVOLUTION  OF  THEOLOGY.        113 

Testament  knew  nothing  about  nature  and  the 
supernatural,  nothmg  about  natural  causes  and 
the  violation  or  suspension  of  natural  laws. 
The  words  they  used  to  characterize  what  we 
call  miracles  indicate  their  apprehension  of  these 
events.  Four  words  were  used  by  them:  "won- 
ders," "powers,"  "works,"  and  "signs"  or 
"miracles."^  Any  event  attracting  attention 
and  compelling  iconder,  exhibiting  unusual  or 
more  than  human  power,  accomplishing  a  real 
worl',  usually  beneficent,  and  serving  as  the 
sign  of  a  special  messenger  and  an  authentica- 
tion of  his  message,  is  in  the  conception  of  the 
writers  of  the  Xew  Testament  a  miracle.  As 
the  New  Theology  believes  that  "all  power  be- 
longs to  God,"  that  God  is  immanent  in  the  uni- 
verse, that  there  is  no  real  distinction  between 
the  natural  and  the  supernatural,  that  the  only 
dualism  is  the  material  or  physical  and  the  im- 
material or  spiritual,  it  has  no  difficult}'  in  be- 
lie^^ng  that  the  control  of  the  physical  by  the 
spiritual,  and  therefore  of  the  universe  by  its 
God,  is  sometimes  manifested  by  unexpected  or 
imusual  acts  of  power  and  wisdom  for  spiritual 
ends.  These  are  miracles.  Whether  any  parti- 
cidar  event  reported  as  such  a  witness  of  di^4ne 

^  The  latter  word  is  of  course  merely  the  transliteration  of 
the  Latin  word  miracxdum,  the  Latin  equivalent  of  seemeion^ 
"sign." 


114      THE  EVOLUTION  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 

power  actually  took  place  is  purely  and  simply 
a  question  of  evidence.  The  New  Theology  has 
no  hesitation,  therefore,  in  accepting  some  mira- 
cles and  rejecting  others :  in  accepting,  for  ex- 
ample, the  resurrection  of  Jesus  Christ  as  a  fact 
sufficiently  authenticated ;  doubting  the  resurrec- 
tion of  the  saints  at  the  death  of  Christ,  recorded 
only  by  Matthew,  as  insufficiently  authenticated ; 
and  disbelieving  the  historical  character  of  the 
Jonah  legend  of  the  great  fish,  as  not  authenti- 
cated at  all. 

As  we  are  coming  to  think  of  God  in  men,  not 
over  men,  so  we  are  coming  to  think  of  the  laws 
which  God  issues  as  in  himself  and  in  man,  not 
apart  from  himself  and  over  man:  not  less  in- 
violable, but  more  inviolable ;  not  less  certain, 
but  more  certain ;  not  as  laws  apart  from  man  to 
which  he  must  subject  himself,  but  laws  wrought 
into  his  nature  and  the  very  constitution  of  his 
being.  We  speak  of  laws  of  the  State.  They 
have  been  enacted  by  our  legislators,  some  good, 
some  bad,  some  indifferent.  We  speak  of  the 
laws  of  art,  the  laws  of  music,  the  laws  of  politi- 
cal economy,  the  laws  of  history.  They  have  not 
been  enacted  by  a  legislative  body.  They  are 
not  statutes  that  have  been  enacted  over  art, 
over  music,  over  industry ;  they  are  inherent  in 
the  very  nature  of  art,  of  music,  of  literature, 
of  industry,  of  politics.    Whether  God  wrote  the 


THE  EVOLUTION  OF  THEOLOGY.        115 

Ten  Commandments  with  his  finger  in  the  stone 
or  not,  and  whatever  that  strange  enigmatical 
declaration  means,  he  wrote  them  in  the  very 
nature  of  man  when  he  made  man.  They  are  not 
something  God  has  issued,  saying,  You  must 
obey  this :  they  are  something  God  has  wrought 
into  the  very  fibre  and  structure  of  man's  being. 
These  laws  are  laws  of  man  because  they  are  the 
laws  of  God,  and  laws  of  God  because  they  are 
laws  of  man,  and  because  man  and  God  are  in 
very  essence  one.  The  laws  of  the  sunbeam  are 
the  laws  of  the  sun,  because  the  sunbeam  comes 
from  the  sun,  bringing  the  laws  of  the  sun  and 
the  nature  of  the  sun,  that  it  may  warm  and 
vivify  the  earth.  And  the  laws  of  my  nature 
are  the  laws  of  God's  own  nature  because  I  come 
from  God,  have  God's  nature  written  in  my 
members,  and  am  a  child  of  God,  possessing  my 
Father's  nature.  They  are  wrought  into  the 
very  fibre  and  structure  of  the  human  soul ;  in- 
violable, not  because  a  divine  imperial  author- 
ity, sitting  above,  looks  out  on  all  the  earth, 
and  sees  every  violation  and  follows  it  with  ar- 
rest and  punishment,  —  inviolable,  because  they 
are  inherent  in  the  nature  of  man  and  inherent 
in  the  nature  of  God;  so  absolute  and  so  invio- 
lable, that  if  we  could  conceive  that  God  himself 
were  dethroned  and  ceased  to  exist,  law  would 
still  go  on  throughout  eternity,  unless  nature  it- 
self were  dissolved  into  anarchy. 


116       THE  EVOLUTION  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 

Hence,  revelation  is  not  a  book  external  to 
men,  giving  laws  which  are  external  to  men,  by 
a  God  who  is  external  to  men.  Revelation  is 
the  unveiling^  in  hmnan  consciousness  of  that 
which  God  wrote  in  the  hmnan  soul  when  he 
made  it.  In  the  spring  I  go  to  my  garden  bed, 
and  write  in  the  soil  with  my  finger  certain  let- 
ters, and  sow  the  proper  seeds  and  cover  them 
over,  and  there  is  nothing  but  a  bed  of  mould. 
In  June,  from  these  seeds  flowers  will  have 
sprung  up,  and  they  will  have  spelled  out  a  name. 
The  sun  has  revealed  them.  They  were  there, 
but  the  sun  has  made  that  to  appear  which  but 
for  the  shining  of  the  sun  would  not  have  ap- 
peared. So,  in  the  heart  of  man  God  has  writ- 
ten his  message,  his  inviolable  law  and  his  mer- 
ciful redemption,  because  he  has  made  the  heart 
of  man  akin  to  the  heart  of  God.  Revelation 
is  the  upspringing  of  this  life  of  law  and  love, 
of  righteousness  and  mercy,  under  the  influence 
of  God's  own  personal  presence  and  power.  The 
question  between  the  two  schools  of  theology  con- 
cerning the  Bible  is  thus  important  and  even 
fundamental.  It  is  not  whether  there  are  some 
specks  of  sandstone  in  the  marble.  To  the  Old 
Theology,  God,  as  a  great  infinite  Caesar  ruling 
the  world,  has  framed  certain  statutes  and  given 
them  to  us,  and  we  must  obey  them,  or  come  into 
collision  with  him  and  suffer  the  threatened  pen- 


THE  EVOLUTION  OF  THEOLOGY.        117 

alties.  To  the  New  Theology,  he  has  made  man 
after  his  own  image  and  written  his  own  nature 
in  the  human  conscience  and  in  human  love,  and 
then  has  interpreted  by  the  mouth  of  his  pro- 
phets what  he  has  written  in  the  hearts  of  his 
children. 

Such  a  revelation  is  not  infallible;  but  it  is 
for  that  very  reason  the  more  perfect  revelation. 
It  is  said,  If  you  think  that  the  gold  and  the 
earth  are  mixed  together  in  the  Bible,  how  will 
you  discriminate,  how  will  you  tell  what  is  gold 
and  what  is  earth  ?  We  do  not  wish  to  discri- 
minate ;  we  do  not  wish  to  separate.  It  is  not 
gold  with  dross;  it  is  oxygen  with  nitrogen. 
The  oxygen  is  mixed  with  the  nitrogen  in  order 
that  it  may  the  better  be  breathed,  and  the  bet- 
ter minister  to  human  life.  In  the  Bible  the 
divine  is  mingled  —  inextricably  and  indivisibly 
mingled  —  with  the  human,  that  humanity  may 
receive  it  and  be  ministered  to  by  it.  We  can- 
not take  the  great  truths  of  God  and  his  gov- 
ernment and  his  love  into  our  own  experiences 
except  as  they  are  woven  into  the  experience 
of  men  of  like  passions  and  infirmities  and  im- 
perfections as  ourselves.  The  Bible  is  a  more 
sacred  book  because  it  is  a  hmnan  book.  It 
is  a  diviner  book,  not  merely  because  it  shows 
us  the  law  of  God  and  the  nature  of  God,  but 
because  it  shows  us  God  and  man  inextricably 


118      THE  EVOLUTION  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 

woven  together  so  that  they  cannot  be  separated. 
It  is  impossible  to  run  a  knife  of  cleavage 
through  the  character  of  Jesus  Christ,  and  say, 
"This  was  God,  and  this  man."  The  glory  of 
Christ's  revelation  of  God  to  men  is  that  he 
shows  that  God  and  man  are  so  interwoven  that 
separation  is  impossible.  That  which  is  true 
of  incarnation  is  true  of  revelation;  the  divine 
glory  of  the  Bible  is  that  the  truth  and  love  and 
life  and  glory  of  God  show  themselves  in  human 
experience.  Thus  the  Bible  becomes  not  an 
end,  but  a  means  to  an  end.  It  is  the  glass  in 
and  through  which  we  see  God  darkly.  And 
all  the  better  because  darkly.  If  the  glass  were 
not  smoked,  we  could  not  see  the  sun  at  all.  Our 
faith  is  not  in  the  book,  but  in  the  God  to  whom 
they  bear  witness  whose  lives  and  teachings  are 
revealed  in  the  book.  "We  first  hear  the  echo 
in  prophet  and  epistle;  then  we  listen  for  the 
Voice  itself.  Thus  we  follow  our  fathers,  but 
it  is  that  we  may  come  to  the  Presence  to  which 
they  came.  The  wings  of  God's  own  angels  are 
over  us,  and  the  very  presence  of  God  himself 
is  in  our  heart,  and  his  eyes  look  love  into  our 
eyes,  and  his  life  is  filling  our  life,  and  we  will 
not  go  back  to  the  portico  of  the  Temple  and  the 
echo  of  the  Voice. 

Faith  in  God  has  gradually  brought  with  it 
faith  in  man  as  the  son  of  God ;  and  faith  in  the 


THE  JE VOLUTION  OF  THEOLOGY.        119 

power  of  man,  —  not  of  a  few  mystics,  or  espe- 
cially elected  saints,  or  divinely  appointed  priests 
and  prophets,  —  but  faith  in  the  power  of  man, 
and  of  every  man,  as  a  son  of  God,  to  know 
God  directly  and  immediately.  Imperialism  in 
theology  necessarily  carried  with  it  rationalism. 
Immanence  in  theology  necessarily  carries  with 
it  intuitionalism.  In  the  United  States,  in  the 
death  of  Dr.  Emmons,  in  1840,  there  died  the 
last  representative  of  the  old  school  of  New 
England  preachers,  the  purely  logical.  A  new 
school  is  taking  its  place,  the  intuitional.  That 
man  is  a  reasonable  creature ;  that  the  reason  is 
the  supreme  and  divine  faculty :  that  his  reason 
is  to  be  convinced  by  the  truth;  that  when  his 
reason  is  convinced  his  will  must  obey;  that 
when  this  result  is  reached  he  is  a  converted  be- 
ing—  this  was  the  philosophy  which,  sometimes 
avowed,  sometimes  imrecognized,  underlay  the 
preaching  of  the  old  school.  The  whole  fabric 
of  the  religious  life  was  built  by  logical  pro- 
cesses, by  means  of  doctrine,  on  the  human  rea- 
son. But  all  men  are  not  logical ;  and  all  men 
do  not  obey  the  truth,  even  when  it  is  made 
clear  to  their  logical  understanding.  The  office 
of  logic  is  to  criticise  rather  than  to  enforce,  and 
to  enforce  rather  than  to  reveal.  Spiritual  truth 
is  not  mined  by  picks  and  beaten  out  by  ham- 
mers.    It  is   in   the  heavens,  not  buried   in  the 


120      THE  EVOLUTION   OF  CHBISTIANITY. 

earth;  to  be  seen,  not  mined.  It  is  within,  not 
without ;  not  to  be  arrived  at  by  slow  processes 
of  deduction,  but  to  be  apprehended  and  appre- 
ciated upon  a  mere  presentation  of  it.  This  far- 
reaching  truth  was  spoken  outside  the  church, 
in  England  by  a  Carlyle,  and  in  America  by  an 
Emerson;  its  spiritual  prophet  in  the  Puritan 
churches  of  New  England  was  Horace  Bushnell. 
That  truth  is  immediately  and  directly  seen  by 
the  soul ;  that  God  is  no  best  hypothesis  to  ac- 
count for  the  phenomena  of  creation,  but  the 
soul's  best  friend,  its  Father,  its  intimate  personal 
companion;  that  inspiration  is  no  remote  phe- 
nomenon, once  attested  by  miracles,  now  forever 
silenced  in  the  grave  of  a  dead  God,  but  a  uni- 
versal and  eternal  communion  between  a  living 
God  and  living  souls ;  that  the  forgiveness  of  sins 
is  infinitely  more  than  any  theory  of  atonement, 
and  that  no  theory  of  atonement  can  comprehend 
the  full  meaning  of  forgiveness  of  sins  —  these 
were  not  the  theories  of  a  philosopher ;  they  were 
the  realities,  the  vital  convictions,  the  personal 
experiences  of  the  saint,  whose  sainthood  must  be 
in  the  heart  of  the  critic  before  he  can  criticise 
and  in  the  heart  of  the  disciple  before  he  can 
comprehend. 

Thus  the  New  Theology,  breaking  away  from 
the  external  and  governmental  conceptions  of 
Romanism,  and  through  a  revival  of  Orientalism 


THE  EVOLUTION  OF  THEOLOGY.       121 

getting  a  more  spiritual  conception  of  the  teach- 
ins:  of  the  New  Testament,  uses  both  the  church 
and  the  Bible  as  instruments  for  creating  in  the 
heart  of  men  in  the  nineteenth  century  the  same 
spiritual  life  which  the  Bible  portrays  in  the 
hearts  of  the  patriarchs  and  the  prophets  of  olden 
time,  and  develops  a  style  of  preaching  which 
appeals  directly  and  immediately  to  the  divine 
in  humanity,  and  speaks  with  authority,  because 
it  evokes  the  authority  of  the  divinity  which  is 
in  every  man. 

As  the  Latin  or  Puritan  system  of  theology 
gave  a  conception  of  God,  of  law,  and  of  revela- 
tion as  external,  so  it  represented  sin,  though 
less  consistently,  as  external.  For  its  concep- 
tion of  sin  was,  substantially,  that  there  is  a 
great  King  who  is  absolutely  righteous,  and  who 
has  issued  certain  laws  which  ought  to  be 
obeyed,  and  that  men  have  set  their  will  against 
the  will  of  this  great  King,  and  have  deliber- 
ately determined  that  they  will  not  do  what  he 
commands  them  to  do.  But,  inasmuch  as  a 
great  number,  if  not  the  great  majority,  of  men 
are  utterly  unconscious  of  having  set  their  will 
deliberately  against  the  will  of  God,  or  of  being 
in  any  wise  in  rebellion  against  him,  this  theo- 
logy ran  back  the  history  of  sin  to  a  su2)posed 
origin  in  a  remote  past ;  it  said  there  was  a  pro- 
genitor of  this  whole  human  race  to  whom  this 


122     THE  EVOLUTION  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 

edict  was  given,  who  disobeyed  it,  and  that  in 
his  sin  we  all  sinned,  and  in  his  fall  we  all  fell. 
By  that  one  act  the  whole  human  race  was 
brought  into  rebellion  against  God.  We  have 
accordingly,  it  was  said,  a  state  of  society  resem- 
bling that  which  existed  in  our  Southern  States 
twenty-five  or  more  years  ago.  The  world  is  in 
rebellion  against  God,  and,  although  individ- 
uals may  not  have  directly  enlisted  against  the 
Almighty,  they  have  been  swept  along  by  the 
current  into  this  rebellion,  and  are  really,  even 
if  unconsciously,  rebels  against  him  and  his  gov- 
ernment and  laws. 

Three  different  causes  are  at  work  under- 
mining this  theological  system  which  makes  sin 
for  the  race  rest  fundamentally  upon  one  act  of 
apostasy  by  a  progenitor  in  some  remote  past. 
Evolution  declares  that  the  human  race  has  not 
fallen  from  a  higher  estate  to  a  lower,  but  is 
climbing  from  a  lower  estate  to  a  higher.  Mod- 
ern Biblical  critics  maintain  that  the  story  of 
the  Fall  is  not  and  does  not  claim  to  be  a  reve- 
lation, but  is  a  spiritualized  account  of  an  an- 
cient legend  or  myth,  to  be  found  in  other  lit- 
erature at  least  as  ancient  as  the  most  ancient 
date  attributed  by  any  scholar  to  the  author  of 
Genesis.  And  students  in  sociology  have  dis- 
covered that  the  cause  of  crime  is  not  a  strong 
and  rebellious  will,  but  a  weak  and  irresolute 


THE  EVOLUTION  OF  THEOLOGY.        123 

one.     It  does  not  follow  that  modern  thought 
is  comino'  to  the  conclusion  that  there  is  no  real 
sin  in  the  human  race,  no  penalty  following  sin, 
and  no  need  of  forgiveness  and  redemption  to 
deliver   from  both   sin   and   penalty.     On   the 
contrary,    I   think   we   are  coming   to   have   a 
deeper  and  a  diviner  sense  of  sin ;   a  truer  and  a 
more  practical  conception  of  what  sin  is,  and  in 
what  it  does  really  consist.     The  laws  of  God 
are  laws  written  in  the  human  soul,  and  the  sin 
of  man  is  a  sin  against  the  law  of  his  own  na- 
ture.    Sin  is   not  man  setting  himself  against 
a  law  external  to  himself.     Every  man  is  two 
men ;  every  man  is  a  battle-ground  in  which  the 
higher  and  the  lower  man  are  contending  one 
against  the  other.     Man  has  come  up  out  of  the 
lower  condition,  and  in  every  new  stage  of  his 
life  he  comes  under  a  new  and  a  diviner  law, 
the  law  of  a  new  and  a  diviner  nature.     He  is 
no  longer  under  the  laws  of  his  old  being.     The 
very  standards  of  truth  and  righteousness  change. 
In  every  new  stage  of  evolution  he  comes  under 
a  new  law  of  righteousness.     Men  are  coming 
step  by  step  into  a  higher  and  spiritual  reahn, 
and  under  the  authority  of  a  higher  and  spir- 
itual law.     Sin  is  a  relapse.     Depravity  lies  in 
those  elements  of  the  old  nature  which  makes 
such  a  relapse  always  a  possible  and  real  danger. 
"If   ye    were  blind,"   says   Christ,  "ye  should 


124      THE  EVOLUTION  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 

have  no  sin  :  but  now  ye  say,  We  see ;  therefore 
your  sin  remaineth."  It  is  as  we  come  up  into 
the  light  that  sin  becomes  possible.  If  there 
were  no  redemption,  there  would  be  no  sin. 

I  can  remember,  when  a  boy,  how  the  minister 
used  to  exhort  me  to  lay  down  the  weapons  of 
my  rebellion.  I  did  not  know  what  he  meant. 
I  had  no  weapons  of  rebellion.  I  thought  I  was 
doubly  wicked  because  I  did  not  see  that  I  was 
a  rebel,  though  in  very  truth  I  cannot,  looking 
back  along  my  life,  remember  the  time  when  I 
did  not  sincerely,  in  my  deepest  heart  of  hearts, 
desire  to  know  the  will  of  God  and  do  the  will 
of  God.  No !  I  am  not  a  rebel,  and  never  have 
been.  I  repeat  the  language  of  the  Ej)iscopa- 
lian  Confession:  "I  have  done  the  things  which 
I  ought  not  to  have  done,  and  I  have  left  un- 
done the  things  which  I  ought  to  have  done." 
True!  and  yet,  after  all,  if  my  Father  were  to 
stop  me,  and  say,  "Make  your  inventory;  tell 
me  what  things  you  did  yesterday  that  you  ought 
not  to  have  done,"  I  should  often  find  it  diffi- 
cult to  put  my  finger  on  one  of  them;  "Tell 
me  what  things  you  left  undone  yesterday  that 
you  ought  to  have  done,"  I  might  not  easily  j)ut 
my  finger  even  on  one  of  those.  But  when  I 
come  to  the  closing  sentence  of  that  triple  decla- 
ration, "There  is  no  health  in  me,"  it  is  in  no 
figurative  sense  that  I  feel  like  putting  my  hand 


THE  EVOLUTION  OF  THEOLOGY.        125 

on  my  moutli  and  my  mouth  in  the  dust,  and 
crying  out,  "Woe  unto  me,  for  I  am  unclean." 
It  is  not  the  things  which  I  have  done,  it  is 
not  the  things  which  I  have  left  undone,  that 
call  me  to  repentance.  It  is  the  kind  of  being 
I  am.  I  have  not  stained  my  hand  with  the 
blood  of  my  neighbor.  I  have  not  put  my 
hand  into  his  pocket  and  filched  his  earnings. 
But,  when  I  look  into  my  heart,  and  see  what 
there  is  of  ambition  and  pride  and  selfishness  and 
greed  still  hiding  there,  I  do  not  know  but  that, 
if  I  had  lived  where  my  brother  lives,  my  hand 
would  be  red  as  his  is,  my  hand  would  be 
smirched  with  greed  as  his  has  been.  I  am 
haunted  by  another  self.  I  hate  no  man  except 
myself.  And  when  this  shadowy  monster  walks 
by  my  side  and  whispers  the  evil  suggestion 
into  my  ear,  I  long  to  get  my  hand  upon  his 
throat  and  my  feet  upon  his  prostrate  person ! 
It  is  not  what  I  have  done ;  it  is  not  what  I  have 
left  undone :  it  is  what  there  is  left  in  me,  that 
came  I  know  not  whence,  that  is  here  I  know 
not  why,  and  that  somehow  must  be  cleansed 
away  before  I  am  the  man,  God  helping  me,  I 
mean  to  be.^ 

As  we  are  coming,  then,  to  think  of  sin  not 
as  successive  acts  of  the  will  performed,  and  cer- 

^  This  subject  is  more  fully  treated  in  a  subsequent  chapter 
on  "  The  Evolution  of  the  Individual  Soul." 


126     THE  EVOLUTION  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 

tainly  not  as  some  great  apostasy  in  the  past  in 
which  we  had  no  share,  bnt  as  in  elements  of 
our  being  which  are  unworthy  of  those  that  are 
called  the  children  of  God,  so  we  are  coming  to 
see  that  penalty  is  not  external  penalty  inflicted 
by  a  governor  for  crime  perpetrated.  The  law 
is  in  ourselves ;  the  disease  and  the  disorder  are 
in  ourselves;  and  the  penalty  is  in  ourselves. 
Every  sin  comes  back  to  plague  the  sinner. 
There  is  no  need  of  any  flagellations ;  every  man 
flagellates  himself.  No  God  in  heaven  or  devil 
in  hell  is  needed  to  kindle  the  fire  that  is  not 
quenched,  or  to  breed  the  worm  that  dieth  not. 
Every  man  kindles  the  fire  and  breeds  the  worm 
in  his  own  soul.  This  is  not  new.  The  old 
Greek  tragedians  saw  it,  and  wrought  it  into 
their  tragedies.  Dante  saw  it,  and  repeated  it 
in  the  story  of  the  Inferno.  Shakespeare  saw 
it,  and  revealed  it  in  Macbeth  and  in  Othello. 
Browning  and  Tennyson  have  seen  and  inter- 
preted it.  That  penalty  and  sin  are  both  within 
the  man ;  that  we  never  enter  into  heaven,  but 
heaven  into  us ;  that  we  never  enter  into  hell,  but 
hell  into  us  —  this,  the  vision  of  the  poets,  pagan 
and  Christian,  the  church  is  beginning  slowly 
and  after  long  years  of  miseducation  to  appropri- 
ate and  make  its  own.  How  this  self-indulgent 
appetite  vitiates  and  destroys  the  very  tissues 
of  the  body  and  makes  imjDossible  the  simple, 


THE  EVOLUTION  OF  THEOLOGY.        127 

natural,  liealthful  pleasures  of  the  physical  or- 
ganization! How  this  grasping,  greedy,  cov- 
etous appetite  grows  by  what  it  feeds  on,  until 
the  man  is  consumed  by  the  fire  of  his  own  in- 
satiable lust  for  wealth!  How  this  pride  walls 
the  man  in,  and  isolates  him,  and  separates  him 
from  his  fellows  ;  how  it  incrusts  him,  and  turns 
him  from  a  living  man  into  stone !  And  this 
vanity  that  makes  us  desire  the  applause  of  our 
fellow-men,  and  puffs  us  up  with  conceit,  how 
it  deprives  us  of  the  pleasure  we  seek  in  the 
very  process  of  our  striving  for  their  applause, 
and  brings  us  into  contempt  in  the  very  act  by 
which  we  strive  to  gratify  our  vanity  !  Nay, 
how  all  these  sins  isolate  us  from  one  another, 
and  isolate  us  from  God !  Men  build  them- 
selves into  narrow  cells,  inflict  upon  themselves 
the  penalty  of  a  perpetual  solitary  confinement, 
go  out  of  the  brotherhood,  and  estrange  them- 
selves from  their  heavenly  Father.  No  Peter 
stands  at  the  heavenly  gate  to  say  who  may 
come  in  and  who  may  not.  The  gates  of  the 
Heavenly  City  are  flung  wide  open  day  and 
night,  and  when  men  die  they  may  go  straight 
up  to  that  gate  and  walk  in  —  if  they  wish. 
But  as  men  that  dive  to  the  bottom  of  the  sea 
incase  themselves  in  armor,  and  then  going 
down  are  untouched  by  the  sea,  we,  by  our 
pride,  our  selfishness,  our  vanity,  our  self-cou- 


128     THE  EVOLUTION  OF  CHBISTIANITY. 

ceit,  our  appetites,  so  incase  ourselves  that, 
standing  in  the  midst  of  purity  and  light  and 
life,  we  are  untouched  by  it,  solitary  in  the 
kingdom  of  God  on  earth,  solitary  in  the  king- 
dom of  God  in  heaven. 

If  forgiveness  of  sin  were  taking  away  an 
external  penalty  threatened  by  an  imperial  God 
upon  men  for  violation  of  an  external  law,  then 
it  could  be  taken  away  externally.  But  if  pen- 
alty is  sin  and  sin  is  penalty,  if  these  are  only 
two  aspects  of  the  same  thing,  different  ways  of 
spelling,  as  it  were,  the  same  word,  then  redemp- 
tion must  be  within,  as  the  penalty  is  within  and 
as  the  lawlessness  is  within.  The  man  who  is 
a  battle-ground  between  the  animal  and  the  spir- 
itual can  find  peace  only  in  one  of  two  ways : 
either  he  must  go  back  to  the  animal  or  he  must 
go  vip  to  the  heavenly.  The  man  in  whose  na- 
ture appetite  is  struggling  with  self-respect  and 
conscience  must  go  back  to  the  abyss  or  up  to 
the  Son  of  God,  or  remain  torn  in  sunder  eter- 
nally by  these  two  conflicting  motives  that  are 
within  his  soul.  God  himself  cannot  take  the 
penalty  out  of  a  life  and  leave  the  sin  in,  unless 
he  were  to  revolutionize  the  nature  of  man  and 
his  own  nature.  What  God  is  doing  in  the 
world  is  not  lifting  off  the  threatened  penalty 
from  men  that  have  done  something  wrong,  but 
putting  life  into  men  who  are  as  yet  only  half 


THE  EVOLUTION  OF  THEOLOGY.       129 

living,  and  taking  the  death  out  of  men  that  are 
still  half  dead.  There  is  not  one  single  passage 
in  the  New  Testament  that  in  explicit  terms 
promises  remission  of  penalty ;  but  the  Bible 
is  written  all  over  its  pages  with  the  radiant 
promise  of  the  remission  of  sins.  The  function 
and  aim  of  the  gospel  is  to  take  the  pride,  the 
passion,  the  selfishness,  the  vanity,  the  vice,  the 
sensuality,  and  whatever  other  evil  thing  there 
may  be,  out  of  the  heart  and  out  of  the  life. 
Redemption  is  within,  not  without.  It  is  heal- 
ing. Not  uncommon  in  forensic  theology  is  the 
figure  of  the  sinner  shut  up  in  his  prison-house, 
and  the  messenger  coming  with  the  word  of  par- 
don signed  and  sealed  in  the  blood  of  Christ, 
and  the  promise.  If  the  prisoner  will  accept  this 
pardon  in  faith  and  repentance,  he  may  go  free. 
But  no  such  figure  is  found  in  the  Bible.  What 
are  the  figures  there  ?  They  are  such  as  these : 
Your  sins  are  a  cloud  in  the  heavens  ;  like  the 
shining  of  the  sun  on  the  cloud  is  the  shining  of 
the  life  of  God  on  the  heart,  and  he  will  shine 
on,  until  he  has  blotted  out  every  sin.  Sin  is 
like  a  record  in  a  book ;  he  will  with  chemicals 
erase  the  record  and  make  the  page  white  and 
ready  for  a  new  writing.  The  life  is  like  that 
lived  in  some  preexisting  state ;  the  man  may 
be  born  again.  Man  is  a  slave  to  sin ;  God 
will  set  him   free.     Man   is  in  his  grave,  and 


130     THE  EVOLUTION  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 

such  corruption  has  taken  hold  of  him  that  other 
men  say,  "Do  not  go  near  him,  he  is  so  cor- 
rupt; leave  him  to  himself ;  "  but  Christ  comes 
and  stands  at  the  grave  and  says:  "Lazarus, 
come  forth."  To  be  redeemed  is  to  come  forth, 
now,  out  of  that  corruption,  out  of  that  dark- 
ness, into  the  bright  shining  of  the  sun,  into 
the  singing  of  the  birds,  into  the  immortal  life 
that  is  here  and  now,  the  life  with  God  and  in 
God.  The  New  Theology  is  not  the  doctrine 
that  men  need  no  forgiveness  and  no  God  to 
forgive  them.  It  is  profoundly  the  reverse ;  it 
is  the  doctrine  that  sin  is  wrought  into  the  very 
fibre  and  structure  of  man,  that  penalty  is  a 
part  of  the  sin  and  must  exist  so  long  as  sin  is 
there,  and  that  forgiveness  is  casting  the  sin  out 
and  putting  new  life  in. 

And  so  incarnation  is  not  merely  a  coming  of 
God  to  man,  it  is  a  dwelling  of  God  in  man. 
Universalism  and  Unitarianism  were  the  nat- 
ural, if  not  the  logical  and  necessary,  conclu- 
sions of  Calvinism.  They  were  bred  in  the  Pu- 
ritan atmosphere.  They  grew  in  the  Puritan 
community.  They  were  Presbyterian  in  Old 
England  and  Congregational  in  New  England. 
They  have  never  grown  out  of  Methodism. 
Let  the  world  believe  that  God  is  sovereign  in 
any  such  sense  as  that  man  has  no  sovereignty 
left,  and  that  whether   he  shall  remain  in  sin 


THE  EVOLUTION  OF  THEOLOGY.       131 

and  misery  throughout  eternity  depends  wholly 
upon  God,  and  in  no  wise  upon  the  individual 
man,  —  then  whenever  the  world  comes  also  to 
believe  that  God  is  love,  it  mil  inevitably  be- 
lieve also  in  a  universal  salvation.  Let  the  world 
think  that  God  is  on  his  throne  apart  from  man, 
that  what  he  is  doing  for  men  he  is  doing  exter- 
nally for  them,  that  a  great  gulf  exists  between 
God  and  man,  that  they  are  not  of  kin,  that 
man's  nature  is  not  divine,  is  indeed  undivine, 
and  it  will  ine^dtably  come  to  think  of  the  Christ 
coming  to  earth  as  a  messenger  with  an  embas- 
sage from  the  sovereign  to  the  rebels,  telling 
them  the  terms  on  which  humanity  may  be 
pardoned.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  let  the 
world  and  the  church  come  to  believe  that  law 
and  revelation  and  sin  and  redemption  are  all 
written  in  man,  and  it  will  come  to  write  another 
word  in  man,  and  that  word  Incarnation,  —  God 
coming  into  one  life  in  order  that  he  may  come 
into  all  lives;  into  one  human  experience,  in 
order  that  he  may  enter  into  all  human  expe- 
riences; Christ  the  door  through  which  and  by 
v/hich  man  enters  into  God  and  God  enters  into 
man.  As  in  the  spring  the  first  lily  of  the  season 
puts  its  white  head  above  the  ground,  then  drops 
its  head  that  it  may  whisper  to  its  seed  sisters, 
saying  to  them,  "Come,  come!  this  is  what  you 
are  meant   to  be,"  so  into  the  darkness  of    a 


132     THE  EVOLUTION  OF  CHBISTIANITY. 

pagan  night,  and  into  tlie  vileness  of  a  wholly 
earthly  history,  came  the  one  transcendent, 
pure,  divine  figure,  standing  for  those  few  short 
years  upon  the  earth,  showing  what  is  truly  God 
by  showing  what  is  truly  man  when  God  is  in 
him,  and  calling  out  to  us,  still  in  the  earth- 
iness,  still  in  the  darkness,  and  saying  to  us, 
"Come!  this  is  what  you  were  meant  to  be,  this 
is  what  God  is  trying  to  make  you,  this  is  what 
your  aspirations  mean.  You  are  sons  of  God; 
the  law  of  his  nature  is  the  law  of  your  nature ; 
and,  working  with  him  and  letting  him  work  in 
you,  you  shall  come  out  into  the  sunlight  of 
God's  own  love  and  become  the  sharer  of  his 
own  life." 

If  we  cannot  state  philosophically,  and  cannot 
even  see  quite  clearly,  how  it  is  that  the  sacrifice 
of  Christ  works  out  this  divine  redemption  in 
the  human  soul,  at  least  we  can  see  that  there  is 
no  such  Christian  redemption  except  through 
the  ministry  of  suffering.  It  is  not  that  man 
is  sacrificed  to  appease  God  —  it  is  God  who 
is  sacrificed  to  redeem  man.  Christ  could  not 
have  revealed  a  God  of  truth  and  not  have 
been  a  teaching  Christ ;  nor  revealed  a  God  of 
life  and  not  have  been  a  living  Christ,  carrying 
out  in  life  the  principles  he  inculcated;  nor 
revealed  a  God  of  love  and  not  have  been  a 
suffering  Christ,  for  love  must  suffer  so  long  as 


THE  EVOLUTION  OF  THEOLOGY.        133 

the  loved  one  sins.  Christ  —  who  came  that  he 
might  reveal  the  nature  and  heart  of  God,  who 
came  that  he  might  show  us  God  in  man,  help- 
ing man  toward  God  —  came  to  mingle  his 
tears  with  our  tears,  and,  sinless  though  he 
was,  his  vicarious  repentance  and  his  death  to 
sin  with  our  death  iti  sin,  in  order  that  he 
might  make  it  clear  to  us  that  God  is  always 
suffering  and  struggling  and  laboring  with  us. 
In  the  wonderful  statue  of  the  Laocoon,  —  the 
father  and  the  two  children,  one  on  either  side, 
and  the  serpents  who  have  come  up  out  of  the 
sea  to  destroy  them,  —  the  father  is  fighting  the 
serpents,  not  for  his  own  life,  but  for  his  sons' 
lives.  But  the  struggle  and  the  anguish  in  their 
faces  are  less  than  in  his,  for  love's  battle  is 
hotter  and  love's  suffering  greater  than  the  bat- 
tle and  the  suffering  of  self.  So  out  of  that 
dark  past,  out  of  that  animal  nature,  out  of  that 
strange  mystery  from  which  we  were  called  by 
the  creative  word  of  God,  who  makes  us  of  clay, 
yet  breathes  the  breath  of  his  own  life  into  us, 
come  the  serpentine  elements  that  are  in  our 
own  complex  nature,  as  if  to  strangle  all  that 
is  divine  and  truly  manly  in  us ;  and  it  is  our 
Father  who  is  with  us,  and  whose  reflected 
image  we  see  in  the  cross.  The  agony  in  the 
soul  of  the  Christ  is  but  the  reflection  of  the 
sorrow   that   is   in   the  Father's    soul.     Every 


134     THE  EVOLUTION  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 

burden  of  our  life  is  in  his  life,  and  he  wrestles 
for  us  and  will  conquer  for  us.  It  is  not  the 
omniscience  nor  the  omnipotence  of  God  that  is 
most  unfathomable,  but  his  mercy,  his  sympa- 
thy, his  love ;  the  sympathy  of  a  God  who  is  in 
such  touch  with  humanity  that  we  never  com- 
mit a  sin  that  he  does  not  feel  the  shame  of  it, 
and  we  never  feel  a  remorse  that  the  bitterness 
of  it  does  not  enter  into  him,  and  we  never 
know  a  sorrow  that  he  does  not  sit  down  with 
us  in  our  grief,  and  we  are  never  lifted  up  with 
a  great  joy  that  he  is  not  joyful  also.  For  not 
by  the  suffering  only,  but  by  the  joy  also;  not 
by  the  struggle  only,  but  by  the  peace  also ;  by 
the  whole  entering  of  God  into  human  life,  his 
life  becomes  our  life,  and  we  are  made  par- 
takers of  his  nature,  because  he  comes  down  and 
makes  himself  partaker  with  us  in  our  lives. 

Thus  the  New  Theology  is  evolved  out  of  the 
Old  Theology,  and  the  same  spiritual  faith  is  in 
them  both.  We  believe  that  God  is  an  abso- 
lute, supreme  King;  but  we  know  this  King  to 
be  our  Father,  in  personal  relations  with  each 
one  of  us.  We  believe  his  laws  are  absolute, 
and  not  to  be  broken ;  but  they  are  his  laws  be- 
cause they  are  the  laws  of  his  own  nature,  and 
our  laws  because  they  are  the  laws  of  our  nature, 
for  we  are  the  children  of  God  and  have  come 
from  him.     We  believe  in  a  revelation  that  is 


THE  EVOLUTION  OF  THEOLOGY.        135 

written  in  a  unique  book,  with  a  unique  character 
and  a  unique  history ;  but  we  believe  that  the 
writings  in  this  book  are  but  the  reflection  of 
that  which  was  written  by  God  in  the  inmost 
being  of  the  prophets,  and  we  see  the  vision  bet- 
ter because  we  see  it  reflected  from  a  mirror  and 
in  enigma.  We  believe  in  the  awfulness  of  sin ; 
not  chiefly  in  the  things  which  we  have  done,  not 
chiefly  in  the  things  which  we  have  left  undone, 
but  in  the  weakness,  the  infirmity,  the  animal- 
ism, the  unworthiness  that  is  in  us,  and  that 
might  sweep  us  out  any  moment  into  the  abyss 
from  which  the  hand  of  Providence  has  thus  far 
guarded  us.  We  believe  in  the  certainty  of 
punishment,  not  because  by  and  by  we  shall  be 
heard  before  an  omniscient  Judge;  but  because 
in  man's  own  conscience  is  erected  a  judgment 
seat  from  which  he  never  can  escape  unless  he 
flies  from  his  own  nature.  We  believe  in  a 
great  redemption;  not  one  that  opens  the  door 
of  a  prison  and  lets  us  out,  but  one  that  opens 
the  door  of  our  own  self -erected  prison  and  lets 
Christ  in,  and  so  fulfils  in  us  the  prayer  of  Ten- 
nyson, 

"  Oh,  for  a  man  to  arise  in  me, 
That  the  man  that  I  am  may  cease  to  be !  " 

We  believe  in  a  sacrifice,  not  of  a  mediator  to 
appease  the  wrath  of  God,  but  of  God  manifest 
m  the  flesh,  sacrificing  himself  to  purify  and 
perfect  the  children  of  men. 


CHAPTER   V. 

THE  EVOLUTION   OF  THE   CHURCH. 

Jesus  Christ  was  the  founder  neither  of  reli- 
gion nor  of  a  religion.  If  religion  be  the  life  of 
God  in  the  soul  of  man,  that  existed  long  before 
Jesus  Christ  came  into  the  world.  Not  to  go 
outside  of  Judaism,  it  was  seen  in  Abraham, 
Moses,  David,  Isaiah,  and  the  long  line  of  patri- 
archs and  proj^hets  of  Jewish  history.  If  reli- 
gion be  such  a  manifestation  of  God  as  jiroduces 
a  moral  influence  on  the  life  and  character  of 
man,  that  also  had  existed,  both  within  and  with- 
out Judaism,  long  prior  to  the  time  of  Christ. 
Jesus  Christ  was  not,  therefore,  the  founder  of 
religion.  It  was  founded  in  the  beginning,  when 
God  created  man  in  his  own  image  and  breathed 
into  him  the  breath  of  a  spiritual  life.  Nor  was 
he  the  founder  of  a  religion.  A  religion,  as  dis- 
tinguished from  religion,  is  a  2)articular  and 
organized  type  of  the  life  of  God  in  the  soul 
of  man.  It  is  a  particular  form  of  moral  and 
spiritual  organization,  resulting  from  some  spe- 
cialized perception  of  that  manifestation  of  God 
to  man  which  is  as  universal  as  the  race.     Each 


THE  EVOLUTION  OF  THE  CHURCH.     137 

religion  has  therefore  its  own  specific  expres- 
sion or  embodiment :  an  intellectual  expression 
in  a  creed  or  theological  system;  an  emotional 
expression  in  a  ritual  or  liturgy ;  and  an  organic 
expression  in  an  institution  or  institutions. 
Christ  gave  to  his  disciples  neither  a  creed,  a 
liturgy,  nor  rules  for  the  construction  of  an  ec- 
clesiastical organization.  He  has  told  us  very 
distinctly  for  what  he  came  into  the  world.  "I 
have  come,"  he  said,  "that  they  might  have  life, 
and  that  they  might  have  it  more  abundantly." 
"I  give  unto  them  eternal  life."  "Father,  thou 
hast  given  thy  Son  power  over  all  flesh,  that  he 
should  give  eternal  life  to  as  many  as  thou  hast 
given  him."  He  came  that  he  might  give  life, 
and  this  life  has  expressed  itself  in  intellectual 
forms,  that  is  in  creeds;  in  emotional  forms, 
that  is  in  liturgies ;  in  institutional  forms,  that 
is  in  churches.  But  he  gave  neither  a  creed,  a 
liturgy,  nor  a  church  to  the  world. 

He  assumed  certain  truths  and  gave  expres- 
sion to  them  as  truths  of  vital  experience,  but 
he  never  crystallized  them  into  a  creed.  Thus 
he  was  accustomed  to  address  God  as  his  Fa- 
ther, and  he  told  his  disciples  to  do  the  same. 
He  illustrated  the  relationship  between  God  and 
man  by  that  between  a  benignant  father  and  an 
erring  child.  He  said  that  God  was  more  ready 
to  impart  his  holy  influence  to  those  that  desired 


138      THE  EVOLUTION  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 

it  than  an  earthly  father  to  give  good  gifts  to  his 
children.  But  he  never  described  the  attributes 
of  God,  nor  afforded  any  theological  definition  of 
God,  nor  discussed  philosophically  the  character 
of  the  Infinite  One,  or  his  relations  to  the  finite 
creation.  He  assumed  that  men  were  bound 
together  by  a  deeper  relationshij)  than  that  which 
finds  expression  in  church,  state,  or  even  race. 
He  passed  beyond  all  these  boundaries  within 
which  we  still,  for  the  most  part,  confine  our 
sympathies.  He  skillfully  awakened  human  re- 
gard, even  in  the  breast  of  a  narrow-minded  Jew, 
for  the  renegade,  apostate,  and  heretical  Samar- 
itan, by  picturing  such  an  one  with  a  compas- 
sionate and  tender  heart.  But  one  looks  in  vain 
in  his  sayings  for  a  definition  of  human  brother- 
hood or  a  systematic  philosophy  of  society.  He 
treated  men  habitually  as  possessing  immortal 
natures,  —  treated  life  here  as  a  fragment  whose 
consequences  are  projected  into  the  hereafter; 
but  he  never  discussed  the  doctrine  of  immor- 
tality, much  less  the  specific  conditions  of  the 
future  state.  One  may,  perhaps,  out  of  his  say- 
ings construct  a  Christian  doctrine  of  Last 
Things,  but  he  will  have  to  construct  it  himself ; 
he  will  not  find  it  in  the  Gospels  made  ready  to 
his  hand.  Jesus  Christ  lived  at  a  time  and  in 
a  country  when  sacrifices  were  the  universal 
expression  of  worship,  and  access  to  God  and 


THE  EVOLUTION  OF  THE  CHUECH.    139 

relief  from  the  burden  and  remorse  of  sin  were 
supposed  possible  only  through  the  shedding  of 
blood.  He  said  nothing  against  this  sacrificial 
system,  but  when  he  saw  in  men  the  signs  of  a 
genuine  repentance,  he  simply  bade  them  go  in 
peace  and  sin  no  more.  He  assumed  that  there 
was  a  provision  by  which  the  burdened  soul 
might  find  peace,  and  that  all  that  was  necessary 
for  that  purpose  was  to  abandon  the  sin  and 
enter  upon  a  new  life.  A  doctrine  of  atonement 
may  be  deduced  from  his  teaching,  —  has  been 
deduced  from  his  teaching,  —  but  the  doctrine 
of  the  atonement  is  a  deduction.  Christ  no- 
where gives  expression  to  it  in  a  philosophical  or 
doctrinal  form.  He  assumed  a  position  toward 
mankind  of  calm  superiority.  He  never  classed 
himself  with  men.  He  never  expressed  repent- 
ance for  sin,  or  aspiration  for  a  purer  life.  He 
acted  as  one  who  had  come  out  of  a  great  full- 
ness to  impart  to  humanity  in  its  great  poverty. 
And  yet  the  doctrine  of  the  Person  of  Christ, 
though  not  stated  in  the  teachings  of  Christ, 
may  be  deduced  from  them.  That  he  left  his 
claim  to  divinity  unformulated,  to  be  made  for 
him  by  his  followers,  rather  than  by  him  for 
himself,  is  evident  from  a  single  significant  cir- 
cvmistance.  When  he  was  put  on  trial  for  his 
life,  it  was  impossible  to  find  two  witnesses  who 
could  agree  together  concerning  any  utterance 


140      THE  EVOLUTION  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 

of  Jesus  Christ  which  even  a  partial  and  preju- 
diced court  could  construe  into  an  explicit  claim 
of  divinity;  humanly  speaking,  it  may  safely 
be  said  that  Christ  could  not  have  been  con- 
demned for  blasj^hemy,  even  by  the  corrupt 
court  of  Caiaphas,  had  he  not  consented  to  be 
put  upon  the  stand  himself  and  to  have  the  oath 
administered  to  him,  and  then  and  there,  un- 
der the  solemn  sanction  of  that  oath,  and  with 
the  death  penalty  hanging  over  him  as  the  re- 
sult, declared  that  he  was  the  Son  of  God,  and 
would  come  in  the  clouds  of  glory  to  judge  the 
world. 

As  Jesus  Christ  formulated  no  creed,  that  is, 
no  intellectual  expression  of  the  religious  life, 
so  he  formulated  no  liturgy,  that  is,  no  emo- 
tional expression  of  the  religious  life.  He  was 
accustomed  to  pray,  though  generally  in  private. 
On  at  least  one  occasion,  however,  he  met  with 
his  disciples  and  united  with  them  in  a  simple 
service  of  prayer  and  praise  about  the  Passover 
table.  Once  they  asked  him  to  give  them  a 
liturgy.  He  answered  in  an  incomparable  form 
of  prayer  which  includes  the  common  wants  of 
humanity,  its  need  of  food,  of  forgiveness,  and 
of  guidance,  expressed  in  three  very  simple  pe- 
titions; but  that  neither  he  nor  his  disciples 
laid  stress  upon  the  form  of  words  is  evident 
from  the  fact  that  the  form  differs  in  the  two 


THE  EVOLUTION  OF  THE  CHURCH.    141 

reports  which  have  been  preserved  for  us,  while 
the  indications  are  that  the  prayer  itself  was  in 
part,  at  least,  composed  of  petitions  which  were 
before  current  in  Jewish  worship.  The  Jews 
were  accustomed  to  baptize  proselytes  from 
heathen  communities,  as  a  token  that  the  bap- 
tized washed  away  their  old  superstitions  and 
entered  a  new  life;  John  the  Baptist,  seizing 
on  this  familiar  rite,  declared  that  the  Jews 
as  well  as  pagans  needed  purification,  and  he 
used  baptism  to  enforce  this  teaching.  Some  of 
Christ's  disciples  followed  John's  example,  and 
Christ,  after  his  resurrection,  bade  them  use  this 
symbol  among  all  people,  regardless  of  race, 
and  as  a  form  of  initiation,  not  into  Judaism, 
nor  into  a  sect  of  reformed  Jews,  but  into  a 
universal  and  divine  fellowship.  The  birthday 
of  the  Jewish  nation  was  celebrated  by  a  great 
festival,  one  feature  of  it  being  a  supper.  Jesus 
Christ  bade  his  followers  in  the  future  remem- 
ber him  whenever  they  thus  celebrated  their 
nation's  birthday.  In  neither  case  did  he  create 
or  institute  a  ceremonial ;  he  simply  gave  a  new 
and  deeper  significance  and  direction  to  one  al- 
ready familiar.  In  brief,  Jesus  Christ  inspired 
his  disciples  with  reverence,  with  aspiration,, 
with  thanksgiving,  with  love ;  but  he  left  them 
to  express  that  spiritual  life  which  he  had  im- 
parted to  them  in  language  of  their  own. 


142     THE  EVOLUTION  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 

In  a  similar  manner  he  organized  no  insti- 
tutions of  religion.  Early  in  his  ministry,  he 
called  about  him  from  his  followers  twelve  to  be 
his  more  immediate  companions.  A  little  later 
he  sent  them  out  two  by  two,  to  tell  the  people 
in  the  villages  and  rural  districts  that  the  King- 
dom of  God  was  at  hand,  while  he  carried  the 
same  message  to  the  towns  and  cities.  Sub- 
sequently he  retreated  from  the  crowd  which 
thronged  about  him  in  Galilee,  and  seeking 
retirement  with  these  twelve,  devoted  several 
weeks  to  giving  them  instruction  concerning  the 
spirit  which  should  actuate  them  and  the  prin- 
ciples which  should  guide  them,  in  carrying  on 
his  work  after  he  was  gone.  Still  later,  in  a 
wider  district,  with  a  more  scattered  popula- 
tion, he  sent  out  seventy  itinerant  prophets  on 
an  evangelistic  mission.  After  his  death  and 
resurrection,  he  met  those  who  had  remained 
loyal  to  him,  and  told  them  to  continue  their 
ministry,  and  to  carry  unto  others  the  new  life 
which  they  had  received  from  him.  But  he 
organized  no  society,  formulated  no  constitu- 
tion, appointed  no  officers,  prescribed  no  rules. 
He  left  the  life  to  create  its  own  ecclesiastical 
organization,  as  he  left  it  to  find  its  own  intel- 
lectual and  emotional  expression. 

The  reason  for  this  is  not  far  to  seek.     Paul 
has  explicitly  stated  it.     Prophecies,  he  says, 


THE  EVOLUTION  OF  THE  CHURCH.    143 

shall  fail,  tongues  shall  cease,  knowledge  shall 
vanish  away,  but  faith,  hope,  love,  abide  forever. 
Even  inspired  teaching,  and  all  the  forms  in 
which  it  may  utter  itself,  and  all  the  articu- 
lated knowledge  of  which  it  is  the  expression, 
are  evanescent.  These  are  phenomena,  and 
phenomena  always  are  and  always  must  be  tran- 
sitory. What  abides,  —  what  only  can  abide, 
—  is  life.  It  was  this  life  which  Jesus  Christ 
came  to  impart,  the  life  of  faith,  looking  through 
visible  things  as  through  a  veil,  to  the  invisible 
glory  which  the  visible  at  once  conceals  and  dis- 
closes; the  life  of  hope  looking  forward  and 
upward  in  the  expectation  of  a  to-morrow  that 
shall  be  better  than  to-day ;  the  life  of  love  seek- 
ing not  its  own  welfare,  but  the  weKare  of 
others.  This  threefold  spirit  is  eternal  and  con- 
stant, while  all  expressions  of  this  threefold 
spirit  are  transitory  and  changeful.  Christ  in- 
stituted no  ecclesiastical  organism,  framed  no 
constitution,  prescribed  no  rules,  appointed  no 
officers  5  but  he  gave  in  various  ways  expression 
to  this  spirit  of  faith,  and  hope,  and  love,  as 
a  spirit  that  must  embody  itself  in  a  church 
which  after  his  death  should  carry  on  his  work. 

But  he  did  more  than  this. 

The  Jews  in  the  Wilderness  had  instituted  a 
Great  Congregation  which  assembled  on  certain 
occasions  for  the  determination  of  great  national 


144     THE  EVOLUTION  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 

questions.  Whether  the  Jewish  commonwealth 
was  a  free  democracy  and  all  the  people  assem- 
bled for  the  purpose  of  mutual  conference  and 
public  decision,  or  whether  it  was  a  republic 
and  this  Great  Congregation  was  a  representa- 
tive body  is  not  altogether  certain.  Probably 
in  the  earlier  history  it  was  a  popular  assembly, 
in  the  later  history  a  representative  assembly. 
It  was,  at  all  events,  the  representative  of  the 
nation,  and  its  action  reflected  the  national  will. 
In  the  Greek  version  of  the  ScrijDtures  the  name 
Ecclesia,  meaning  the  Called  Forth,  was  given 
to  this  assembly.  The  same  name  was  given  in 
Greece  to  an  analogous  assembly  of  the  people 
for  national  consultation  and  common  action. 
Christ  implied  that  his  followers  were  to  consti- 
tute themselves  into  such  an  Ecclesia  or  assem- 
bly. The  principles  which  he  indicated  as  essen- 
tial to  its  existence  and  efficiency  are  these :  — 

1.  There  was  to  be  a  church,  that  is,  a  gather- 
ing together,  of  all  loyal  followers  of  the  Master. 
The  bond  which  was  to  unite  this  assembly  in 
one  great  brotherhood  was  to  be  loyalty,  —  not 
to  a  creed,  not  to  an  order  or  an  organization, 
but  to  a  Person,  and  that  Person  himself. 

The  sole  condition  of  admission  to  this  bro- 
therhood while  Christ  lived  was  personal  loyalty 
to  him.  In  no  solitary  instance  did  he  ask  any 
would-be  disciple  what  he  believed,  or  where  or 


THE  EVOLUTION  OF  THE  CHURCH.     145 

how  lie  worshiped,  or  to  what  nation  or  religion 
he  belonged.  1  He  simply  asked,  Are  you  will- 
ing to  enter  my  school  and  learn  of  me ;  enter 
my  kingdom  and  obey  my  directions?  He  was 
equally  willing  to  welcome  to  his  organization 
the  devout  John,  the  rough,  sailor-like,  profane 
Peter,  the  publican  Matthew,  the  pagan  centu- 
rion. On  the  other  hand,  the  scribe  who  woidd 
follow  him  provided  he  might  first  go  back  to 
his  home  to  bury  his  father,  or  bid  his  kinsfolk 
good-by;  the  ruler  of  the  synagogue  who  would 
join  him,  provided  he  might  still  keep  the  con- 
trol and  administration  of  his  own  wealth;  the 
Nicodemus,  master  in  Israel,  who  was  interested 
in  his  teaching  but  thought  himself  in  no  need  of 
a  new  life,  were  rejected.  And  when  crowds 
thronged  about  him  with  a  great  enthusiasm,  he 
turned  to  them  and  declared  that  unless  they 
loved  him  more  than  father  or  mother  or  life 
itself,  they  were  not  worthy  of  him.  If  they 
would  be  his  followers,  they  must  take  up  the 
cross  daily  and  follow  him.  He  required  of 
those  within  the  church  the  same  spirit  of  abso- 
lute and  unquestioning  loyalty.     When  one  of 

^  The  case  of  the  Sjni-o-Phoenician  woman  (Mark  vii.  24-30) 
may  be  thought  to  be  an  exception  ;  but  she  was  not  seeking 
to  enter  Christ's  body  of  followers  as  herself  a  follower,  and 
it  is  clear  from  the  context  that  Clu'Lst's  first  refusal  to  cure 
her  daughter  was  because  granting  the  cure  sought  for  was 
sure  to  destroy  that  rest  and  privacy  which  he  was  seeking. 


146      THE  EVOLUTION  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 

his  best  friends  rebuked  him  for  foretelling  his 
own  crucifixion,  he  vouchsafed  no  explanation, 
but  turned  upon  the  recalcitrant  disciple  with  a 
sharp  rebuke.  "Get  thee  behind  me,  Satan," 
he  said.  When  two  other  friends  came  to  ask 
for  honorable  position  in  the  coming  kingdom, 
he  answered  with  a  test  of  their  loyalty,  "Are 
ye  able  to  drink  of  the  cup  that  I  shall  drink 
of,  and  to  be  baptized  with  the  baptism  that  I 
am  baptized  with?  "  He  sat  down  at  the  table 
with  his  disciples,  no  one  of  whom  had  thought 
to  offer  his  services  in  washing  the  soiled  feet 
of  the  others,  or  even  of  the  Master  himself. 
When  he  rose,  girded  himself  as  a  slave,  and 
proceeded  with  basin  and  towel  to  wash  and 
wipe  the  feet  of  the  disciples,  and  one  pro- 
tested, he  answered  simply,  I  will  give  you  no 
explanation ;  you  must  submit  or  leave  the  disci- 
pleship.  When,  after  his  resurrection,  he  fore- 
told the  martyrdom  of  Peter,  and  Peter  asked. 
What  shall  befall  John?  the  only  reply  was, 
"  What  is  that  to  thee  ?  Follow  thou  me."  Nor 
was  this  loyalty  to  him  a  temporary  condition  of 
the  little  band,  continuing  only  while  the  Master 
was  living.  On  the  contrary,  he  declared  ex- 
plicitly before  his  death  that  he  would  continue 
to  be  with  his  disciples ;  that  he  and  his  Father 
would  come  and  dwell  with  them ;  that  the  spirit 
that  abode  in  him  should  abide  with  them  also ; 


THE  EVOLUTION  OF  THE  CHURCH     147 

that  it  should  interpret  to  them  the  meaning  of 
his  teaching,  and  open  to  them  new  truths  which 
they  had  not  yet  been  able  to  receive;  that  it 
should  impart  to  them  power;  and  that  under 
this  impartation  they  should  do  greater  works 
even  than  those  which  he  had  done.  Neai  the 
close  of  his  life  he  gave  in  a  beautiful  parable 
an  illustration  of  this  principle  of  spiritual  unity 
in  personal  loyalty  to  him  as  a  living  Lord  and 
Master.  He  was  just  about  going  out  with 
his  friends  to  a  vineyard  outside  the  city  walls, 
or  perhaps  had  already  reached  this  coveted  re- 
tirement. A  vine  was  growing  against  the  wall ; 
the  pruning  knife  had  been  at  work  and  some 
dead  branches  lay  upon  the  ground.  Behold,  he 
said,  the  symbol  of  your  future  life.  I  am  the 
vine,  and  shall  always  be  with  you.  Loyalty  to 
me,  fellowship  with  me,  unity  with  me,  is  the 
one  condition  of  our  order  and  our  organization. 
So  long  as  this  loyalty  is  maintained,  you  will 
bear  fruit;  whenever  this  loyalty  is  lost,  when- 
ever for  my  will  you  substitute  your  own  and 
for  my  life  your  independent  and  individual  life, 
you  will  be  like  these  branches,  cut  oif  from 
the  vine  and  thrown  upon  the  ground ;  there  will 
be  no  life  in  you.  The  first  principle  of  his 
church,  the  sole  secret  of  its  unity,  was  to  be 
personal  loj^alty  to  himself. 

2.   The  second  great  principle  of  his  church 


148    THE  EVOLUTION  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 

was  that  of  equality.  This  future  organization 
was  to  be  a  brotherhood  of  equals.  In  it  there 
were  to  be  no  ranks  and  orders  for  the  exercise 
of  authority.  In  the  world  without,  he  said, 
the  great  and  strong  dominate  the  rest.  In  your 
organization  it  shall  not  be  so.  You  are  to  ac- 
knowledge no  Master  except  myself ;  all  ye  are 
brethren.  Offices  there  may  be,  but  they  shall 
exist,  not  for  honor  and  emulation,  nor  for  the 
exercise  of  authority,  but  only  for  service. 
"He  that  is  greatest  among  you  shall  be  your 
servant."  More  than  once  the  disciples  engaged 
in  hot  discussion  among  themselves  as  to  which 
should  be  greatest,  and  strove  for  precedence. 
It  was  after  one  of  these  questions  that  he  ad- 
ministered that  stinging  rebuke,  to  which  I  have 
just  referred,  by  himself  washing  the  feet  of  the 
disciples  who  had  been  quarreling  upon  the 
question  which  should  have  the  place  of  honor 
at  the  table.  On  another  similar  occasion  he 
asked  them  what  had  been  the  subject  of  their 
contention,  and  getting  no  answer,  took  a  child, 
and  set  him  in  the  midst  of  them,  and  said. 
Except  ye  be  converted  and  become  as  a  little 
child,  ye  shall  not  enter  into  the  kingdom 
of  heaven.  This  fundamental  principle,  that 
every  one  in  his  church  is  responsible  directly  to 
God  and  under  no  authority  except  for  purposes 
of  service,  he  illustrated  by  a  pregnant  figure 


THE  EVOLUTION  OF  THE  CHURCH.     149 

which  has  been  singularly  misinterpreted  by  one 
section  of  his  church.  In  the  East,  a  key  is  not 
unfrequently  given  to  the  steward  of  an  estate 
as  the  symbol  of  his  authority,  much  as  a  bunch 
of  keys  is  sometimes  given  to  the  housekeeper 
in  England,  and  by  her  worn,  hanging  from 
the  waist.  I  give  unto  each  one  of  you,  he  said, 
the  keys  of  the  kingdom  of  heaven.  You  are 
to  have  authority  over  yourselves.  Whatsoever 
you  prohibit  shall  be  prohibited  for  you,  and 
whatsoever  you  permit  shall  be  permitted  for 
you.  For  you  are  called  unto  liberty  and  self- 
control.  ^ 

3.  The  third  principle  of  his  church  was  that 
of  liberty.  In  his  kingdom  no  force  should  be 
used.  Its  only  appeal  should  be  to  the  con- 
science ;  its  only  instrument,  truth.  In  the  very 
beginning  of  his  ministry  he  was  tempted  to 
adopt  world  methods  in  order  to  win  power,  and 
he  peremptorily  refused.  Later,  the  people  in 
their  enthusiasm  would  have  crowned  him  King ; 
he  refused  the  coronation  and  departed  from 
them.  He  told  his  disciples  that  they  were  not 
to  resist  injustice  by  force.  When  he  was  about 
to  be  arrested,  and  one  of  the  disciples  would 

^  Observe  that  in  tliis  famous  passage  Christ  does  not  say 
whomsoQ\ev,  but  u-^aisoever.  Observe  also  that  the  king-doni 
of  heaven  is  in  the  language  of  Christ  a  kingdom  of  God  upon 
the  earth. 


150     THE  EVOLUTION  OF  CHBISTIANITY. 

have  resisted,  he  bade  his  impetuous  friend  put 
up  his  sword.  When  he  stood  before  Pilate  and 
was  questioned,  Art  thou  a  king?  he  replied,  I 
am,  but  a  king  whose  only  authority  is  the  truth, 
and  whose  only  followers  are  those  who  acknow- 
ledge supreme  allegiance  to  the  truth.  And  in 
telling  his  disciples  how  they  were  to  act  in  the 
church  towards  those  who  refused  to  acknow- 
ledge its  decisions,  he  said.  Let  such  an  one  "be 
unto  thee  as  an  heathen  man  and  a  publican." 
That  is,  let  him  go  his  way,  have  nothing  more 
to  do  with  him.  They  were  not  to  attempt  to 
coerce  him.  He  was  to  have  his  liberty;  they 
were  to  have  theirs. 

At  the  death  of  Jesus  Christ,  the  disciples 
went  forth  to  carry  the  new  life  which  they  had 
received  from  their  Master,  the  life  of  faith  and 
hope  and  love,  into  a  world  which  was  sensual, 
despairing,  and  cruelly  selfish.  At  first,  they 
made  no  attempt  to  form  any  ecclesiastical  or- 
ganization. They  had  no  conception  how  long 
and  weary  a  time  must  elapse  before  the  king- 
dom of  God  would  arrive  which  they  believed 
their  Master  had  come  to  usher  in.  They  fully 
expected  his  return  during  their  lifetime.  They 
conceived  no  need  of  any  society  which  should 
outlast  a  single  generation.  The  organizations 
which  sprang  up  out  of  the  apostolic  preaching 
were  spontaneous  in  their  origin  and  different 


THE  EVOLUTION  OF  THE  CHURCH.     151 

from  one  another  in  their  form  and  structure, 
though  at  first  essentially  the  same  in  their 
spirit.  The  early  disciples  had  no  regular 
places  of  worship;  they  often  met  in  private 
homes ;  their  societies  were  in  their  nature  what 
they  were  sometimes  called,  households  of  faith. 
Occasionally  an  entire  Jewish  synagogue  would 
accept  the  new  faith.  Then  the  organization 
remained  unchanged,  while  the  spirit  which  ani- 
mated it  was  revolutionized.  Sometimes  the 
brotherhood  was  composed  chiefly  of  converted 
pagans ;  then  the  organization  naturally  fell  into 
the  forms  and  methods  with  which  the  pagans 
were  familiar.  These  households  of  faith, 
whether  Jewish  or  pagan  in  their  social  origin, 
had  no  creed,  no  organized  system  of  theology, 
no  established  liturgy.  But  they  believed  in  a 
Messiah  to  whose  second  coming  in  their  own 
generation  they  all  joyfully  looked  forward; 
they  used  the  Hebrew  psalmody  both  for  praise 
and  for  their  responsive  readings,  as  in  the 
Jewish  liturgies;  they  employed  the  Lord's 
Prayer,  though  in  connection  with  extempora- 
neous prayer;  they  made  the  worship  subordi- 
nate to  instruction;  they  gathered  frequently,  if 
not  every  week,  about  a  supper-table,  in  com- 
memoration of  their  Lord's  death  and  in  joy- 
ful anticipation  of  his  return ;  this  they  followed 
sometimes  with  a  church  suppei",  partly  as  an 


152       THE  EVOLUTION  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 

occasion  of  social  fellowship,  partly  as  a  means 
for  providing  the  poor  with  food  out  of  the  re- 
sources of  the  more  wealthy ;  and  they  used  bap- 
tism, generally,  if  not  always,  by  immersion, 
as  a  rite  of  initiation  into  the  new  brotherhood, 
at  first  with  the  simple  formula  "In  the  name 
of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ,"  —  subsequently  with 
the  formula  now  generally  in  use,  "In  the  name 
of  the  Father,  the  Son,  and  the  Holy  Spirit." 
But  the  principles  of  which  I  have  spoken  were 
characteristic  of  all  these  primitive  households. 
That  is,  the  one  condition  of  their  unity  was 
loyalty  to  the  Master;  and  this  loyalty  to  one 
Master  carried  with  it  the  liberty  of  an  abso- 
lute and  an  equal  brotherhood. 

The  Roman  empire  was  founded  on  principles 
directly  antagonistic  to  those  propounded  by 
Jesus  Christ.  That  empire  was  organized  upon 
the  principle  of  absolute  subservient  obedience 
to  the  emperor:  his  will  was  the  source  of  all 
law;  belief  in  him  was  the  Roman's  sole  creed; 
reverence  for  him  was  the  Roman's  sole  religion. 
To  him  altars  were  raised  in  every  household; 
from  him  was  derived  the  only  authority  which 
the  Roman  recognized.  And  this  authority  was 
exhibited  and  exercised  through  an  elaborate 
bureaucracy.  There  was  no  brotherhood,  and 
no  semblance  of  brotherhood.  Absolutism  was 
filtered  down  through  successive  subalterns  to 


THE  EVOLUTION  OF  THE  CHURCH.      153 

the  remotest  province  and  to  the  minutest  affairs 
of  the  great  empire.  And  this  authority,  cen- 
tring in  the  emperor  and  expressed  and  exercised 
through  ranks  and  orders  of  subordinates,  was 
enforced  by  physical  penalties.  The  ground  of 
this  authority  was  not  in  conscience,  but  in  fear. 
Rome  was  a  great  armed  camp  —  armed  alike  for 
the  enforcement  of  imperial  authority  over  its 
own  citizens,  and  for  the  extension  of  that  au- 
thority over  countries  which  did  not  as  yet  recog- 
nize it. 

Thus  at  the  beginning  of  the  century  stood 
these  two  kingdoms  over  against  each  other, 
with  their  diametrically  antagonistic  principles. 
The  infant  church  of  Christ:  a  brotherhood  of 
absolute  equals,  centred  in  loyalty  to  an  invisi- 
ble master,  enforced  only  by  the  individual  con- 
science. The  giant  empire  of  Rome :  an  armed 
camp,  under  the  absolute  authority  of  an  en- 
throned Caesar,  enforced  by  a  standing  army, 
extending  throughout  its  entire  territory,  and 
secured  through  officials  who  were  classified  in 
ranks  and  orders  according  to  the  measure  of 
their  authority.  The  difference  between  these 
two  empires  is  strikingly  illustrated  by  their 
respective  capitals.  To  the  pagan,  Rome  was 
"The  Eternal  City;"  the  Christian  looked  for 
a  new  Jerusalem  descending  out  of  heaven  from 
God. 


154    THE  EVOLUTION  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 

From  the  very  first,  these  two  organizations 
instinctively  recognized  in  each  other  a  mortal 
foe.  The  Roman  empire  was  tolerant  of  all  re- 
ligions except  the  Christian  religion ;  ^  that  reli- 
gion Rome  bent  all  its  energies  to  destroy.  The 
Christian  church  saw  in  Rome  the  incarnation  of 
the  world  power,  and  John,  the  great  prophet 
of  the  infant  church,  in  a  vision  beheld  the 
Christ  going  forth  conquering  and  to  conquer 
until  the  kingdoms  of  the  world  had  become  the 
kingdoms  of  the  Lord  and  of  his  Christ.  The 
history  of  the  church  down  to  the  period  of  the 
Reformation  is  the  history  of  the  way  in  which 
Christian  principles  and  the  Christian  spirit 
pervaded  and  transformed  pagan  institutions, 
and  in  which  Christian  institutions  were  moulded 
and  pervaded  by  pagan  princi^^les.  The  result 
in  the  Middle  Ages  was  an  empire  partially 
christianized,  and  a  church  partially  paganized. 

Eulogy  and  condemnation  of  the  church  of  the 
Middle  Ages  are  alike  easy;  a  discriminating 
judgment  is  always  difficult.  The  admirers  of 
the  papal  church  —  the  most  S23lendid,  the  most 
enduring,  and  historically  the  most  powerful  of 
all  himian  organizations  —  have  abundant  mate- 
rial for  their  eulogies.  They  can  point  to  a  life 
so  long  that  by  the  side  of  it  the  most  ancient 

^  It  never  antagonized  the  Jewish  religion  until  Christianity 
issued  from  Judaism. 


THE  EVOLUTION  OF  THE  CHURCH.      155 

Protestant  sect  is  but  a  youth  in  its  teens ;  they 
can  point  to  a  missionary  zeal  so  great  that  by 
the  side  of  it  the  greatest  missionary  triumphs 
of  our  Protestant  religion,  if  triumphs  are  to  be 
measured  by  majorities,  are  insignificant.  They 
can  point  to  a  self-sacrifice  so  deep,  so  abiding, 
so  sacred,  that  the  unbelieving  world  wonders 
and  the  believing  world  worships,  —  women  de- 
nying themselves  the  sacred  joys  of  wifely  and 
maternal  love ;  men  cutting  themselves  off  from 
the  possibility  of  a  home,  that  they  may  serve 
the  -church,  to  them  wife,  mother,  father,  hus- 
band, God.  There  is  no  desert  where  the  sol- 
diers of  this  church  have  not  penetrated,  there 
is  no  danger  which  has  daunted  them,  no  martyr- 
dom which  they  have  not  courted.  They  have 
planted  the  cross  in  the  snows  of  Kamschatka, 
and  in  the  burning  deserts  of  Arabia ;  their  mis- 
sionaries have  penetrated  without  protection 
other  than  that  of  a  sincere,  enthusiastic,  per- 
haps a  fanatical  faith,  the  wilds  of  China  and  of 
Africa,  the  cities  of  pagan  India  and  the  snow- 
covered  forests  of  our  own  North  America. 
Avarice  and  ambition  have  had  no  more  devoted 
adherents  than  the  Church  of  Rome  has  had. 
Seeking  for  the  souls  of  the  Indians,  they  dared 
every  danger  and  suffered  every  privation  that 
the  boldest  trapper  dared  or  endured.  Pesti- 
lence has  not  kept  them  from  the  hospital,  nor 


156      THE  EVOLUTION  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 

the  bullet  from  the  battle-field.  The  Church  of 
Rome  has  in  her  true  sainthood  enrolled  the 
names  of  a  hundred  Howards  and  Florence 
Nightingales. 

We  read  this  page  in  her  history  with  admi- 
ration. It  is  written  in  letters  of  living  light, 
of  more  than  golden  glory.  We  turn  the  page ; 
'  we  find  on  the  reverse  side  a  history  that  fills  us 
with  alternate  amazement  and  indignation  —  a 
history  written  in  letters  of  blood  and  of  fire. 
The  cruelties  of  the  Mohammedan  Saladin  pale 
beside  those  of  the  Christian  Duke  of  Alva. 
Looking  into  the  uncovered  dungeons  of  the  In- 
quisition, no  wonder  if  we  forget  the  patient,  un- 
tiring self-devotion  of  the  monks  of  St.  Bernard. 
The  festivities  of  cruelty  that  make  us  turn  away 
from  the  pages  of  Waldensian  history  blot  from 
our  recollections  the  undying  love  of  the  Jesuit 
missionaries  in  North  America.  The  solemn 
tolling  of  a  bell  breaks  the  silence  of  the  mid- 
night, calling  to  more  horrible  sacrifices  than 
ever  Phoenician  offered  to  his  Moloch,  or  Druid 
to  his  God.  Thirty  thousand  lives  fall  in  the 
Massacre  of  St.  Bartholomew,  victims  to  the 
remorseless  religious  cruelty  of  this  enigmatic 
church.  For  it  is  in  very  truth  the  unsolved 
enigma  of  history,  —  its  flag  red  on  one  side 
with  blood  of  martyrs  whom  it  has  slain,  on  the 
other  side  red  with  its  own  martyrs  who  have 


THE  EVOLUTION  OF  THE  CHURCH.      157 

died  for  it;  bearing  the  uplifted  sword  in  the 
one  hand,  and  the  uplifted  cross  in  the  other; 
distinguished  alike  by  the  names  of  Loyola  and 
of  Xavier,  of  Torquemada  and  of  Bishop  Fene- 
lon.  Enigma  as  it  is,  yet  he  who  recognizes 
that  the  church  is  itseK  an  evolution,  in  which 
the  religious  life  has  struggled  for  existence  and 
has  survived  only  by  proving  its  right  to  sur- 
vival, will  find  in  the  doctrine  of  evolution  the 
explanation  of  this  enigma.  The  glory  of  the 
Roman  Catholic  Church,  the  glory  of  self-sac- 
rifice, is  the  glory  of  Christianity;  its  shame  of 
pride,  sensuality,  and  cruelty  is  the  shame  of 
paganism. 

After  Christ's  death,  as  the  Messiah's  ex- 
pected return  was  delayed,  and  the  church  re- 
alized the  necessity  of  a  permanent  work  of 
preparation  for  his  coming,  it  realized  also  the 
imperative  necessity  for  a  permanent  organiza- 
tion of  his  church.  They  who  met  at  first  in 
private  houses  for  prayer,  praise,  and  mutual 
instruction  very  soon  began  to  plan  and  push 
forward  enterprises  for  imparting  to  others  the 
life  of  faith  and  hope  and  love  which  they 
themselves  possessed.  The  Jewish  law  had  laid 
upon  the  church  a  duty  of  charity,  and  the 
spirit  of  Christ  converted  this  duty  into  an 
enthusiasm.  The  forces  first  of  Judaism  and 
then  of  paganism  were  alert  and  aggressive  to 


158      THE  EVOLUTION  OF  CHEISTIANITY. 

destroy  the  infant  church,  and  persecution  com- 
pelled mutual  cooperation  for  mutual  protection. 
Thus  missionary  zeal,  the  enthusiasm  of  love, 
and  the  necessities  of  self  -  defense  compelled 
organization.  The  early  Christian  societies  were 
modeled  after  those  of  existing  institutions. 
"With  probably  no  single  exception,"  says  Pro- 
fessor Hatch,  "the  names  of  Christian  institu- 
tions and  Christian  officers  are  shared  by  them 
in  common  with  institutions  and  officers  outside 
of  Christianity."  Each  sej^arate  household  of 
faith  came  to  have  a  presiding  officer,  some- 
times called  elder  or  presbyter,  sometimes  called 
overseer  or  bishop.  Then  two  or  more  of  these 
households  of  faith  in  any  given  town  were 
united  under  one  president.  Then  the  house- 
holds of  a  province  were  similarly  united  under 
a  president  who  himself  presided  over  the  work 
of  the  other  local  presidents ;  and  so  gradually 
grew  up  a  systematic  and  highly  organized  epis- 
copal system. 

By  the  fourth  century  the  Christian  church 
had  become  so  strong  that  the  sagacious  Con- 
stantine  thought  it  wiser  and  easier  to  use  than 
to  fight  it.  He  discovered  that  "the  Christian 
soldiers  were  stronger  and  braver  than  their  fel- 
lows," and  "man  for  man  and  battalion  for  bat- 
talion were  more  than  a  match  for  the  pagans." 
By  an  imperial  decree  he  made  Christianity  the 


THE  EVOLUTION  OF  THE  CHURCH.      159 

religion  of  the  state.  But  it  was  the  fundamen- 
tal maxim  of  the  Roman  constitution  that  the 
care  of  religion  was  the  right  as  well  as  the  duty 
of  the  civil  magistrate.  Thus,  the  decree  which 
made  Christianity  the  religion  of  the  state  made 
Constantine  the  head  of  the  church.  Thus,  the 
conversion  of  the  empire  was  the  perversion  of 
the  church.  If  the  one  was  half  Christianized, 
the  other  was  at  the  same  time  and  by  the  same 
act  half  paganized.  Imperial  Christianity  was 
a  mono'rel  religion.  Its  character  is  indicated 
by  a  single  significant  fact:  the  coin  which  Con- 
stantine issued  bore  the  name  of  Christ  on  one 
side,  and  the  figure  of  Apollo  on  the  other. 

As  the  church  waxed  stronger  and  the  empire 
grew  weaker,  the  central  and  imperial  authority 
was  gradually  transferred  from  the  Emperor  to 
the  Bishop  of  Rome.  It  is  needless  here  to  trace 
the  process  of  the  transfer.  It  was  effectually 
symbolized  when,  A.  D.  800,  Charlemagne  knelt 
before  the  high  altar  of  the  stateliest  temple  of 
Christian  Rome,  and  received  from  the  hands  of 
the  Pope  the  diadem  of  the  Caesars.  From  that 
day  the  Church  of  Rome  has  maintained  with 
an  obstinate  consistency  that  it  is  the  right  of  the 
Pope,  as  the  Vicar  of  God,  to  give  the  crown  to 
whom  he  will,  and  take  it  away  when  the  king 
proves  himself  unworthy.  True,  the  Popes  have 
not  always  been  successful  in  maintaining  this 


160    THE  EVOLUTION  OF  CHRISTIANITY, 

authority.  Sometimes  the  Emj^eror  has  been 
subject  to  the  Pope,  sometimes  the  Pope  has 
been  subject  to  the  Emperor,  and  sometimes  the 
two  have  shared  the  authority  between  them. 
But  the  claim  to  imperial  authority  asserted 
by  Leo  III.  in  the  coronation  of  Charlemagne 
has  never  been  formally  withdrawn  or  disavowed 
by  any  successor,  from  that  day  to  this. 

With  this  adojition  of  the  imperialism  of  Eome 
by  the  church  of  Christ,  there  came  necessarily 
the  adoption  of  its  bureaucratic  method.  It  is 
impossible  for  the  head  of  a  paternal  government 
to  exercise  his  authority  directly  over  all  his  sub- 
jects, as  the  father  of  a  family  may  over  his 
children.  That  authority  must  be  entrusted  to 
subordinates  and  transmitted  through  them. 
I  Thus  grew  w^  in  the  church  of  Rome  a  hierar- 
chy whose  offices  were  analogous  to  those  of  the 
Roman  empire,  and  whose  very  names,  as  we 
have  seen,  were  borrowed  from  their  pagan  pro- 
totypes. Father,  Rabbi,  Master,  whom  Christ 
had  said  should  not  exist  in  his  church,  were  all 
transferred  with  imperialism  from  23agan  to  papal 
Rome.  And  this  transmutation  of  the  Christian 
into  the  pagan  organization  was  necessarily  fol- 
lowed by  the  repudiation  of  Christ's  principle 
that  force  was  not  to  be  employed  in  his  church. 

In  pagan  thought  the  Christian  idea  of  pun- 
ishment as  remedial  found  absolutely  no  place. 


THE  EVOLUTION  OF  THE  CHURCH.      161 

The  object  of  pagan  punishment  was  either  the 
gratification  of  a  personal  revenge,  the  exercise 
of  what  is  caUecl  vindictive  justice,  or  the  de- 
terring of  other  criminals  from  the  perpetration 
of  similar  crimes.  With  these  three  objects  in 
view,  the  jninishments  were  made  as  cruel  as 
possible.  This  pagan  conception  of  punishment 
has  not  even  in  our  day  been  wholly  eliminated, 
and  we  are  only  very  gradually  learning  that 
mercy  has  more  power  than  cruelt}^  to  deter.  In 
the  Middle  Ages,  the  punishments  inflicted  by 
the  state  were  pitiless.  "  The  wheel,  the  caul- 
dron of  boiling  oil,  burning  alive,  burying  alive, 
flaying  alive,  tearing  apart  with  wild  horses, 
were  the  ordinary  expedients  by  which  the 
criminal  jurist  sought  to  deter  crime  by  fright- 
ful examples  which  would  make  a  profound  im- 
pression on  a  not  over-sensitive  population."  ^ 
In  England,  theft  was  punished  by  burning;  in 
France,  by  burying  alive ;  in  Germany,  murder 
and  arson  were  punished  by  breaking  on  the 
wheel.  In  Denmark,  blasphemers  first  had  their 
tonofues  cut  out  and  then  were  beheaded.  In 
Hanover,  the  false  coiner  was  punished  by  be- 
ing burned  to  death.  When  the  church  once 
adopted  the  principle  that  force  miglit  be  used 
for  the  punishment  of  heresy,   it  was  inevita- 

^  II.  C.  Lea's  History  of  the  Inquisition,  vol.  i.  234,  from 
which  also  the  other  illustrations  are  taken. 


162      THE  EVOLUTION  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 

ble  that  it  should  use  the  cruel  punishments  in 
vogue  in  its  own  age.  Yet  it  adopted  this 
principle  only  gradually  and  reluctantly.  The 
first  persecutions  for  religious  opinion  were  in- 
troduced by  Constantine,  and  against  them  bish- 
ops in  the  church  vigorously  protested.  The 
first  persecuting  bishops  were  compelled  to  re- 
sign. Even  as  late  as  the  eleventh  century,  per- 
secution of  heretics  by  the  church  was  compelled 
by  the  mob  in  spite  of  ineffectual  resistance  by 
the  ecclesiastics.  The  truth  that  no  opinion, 
however  erroneous,  can  be  a  sin,  is  still  unrecog- 
nized by  the  majority  of  the  church.^  It  is  not 
strange  that  in  the  Middle  Ages  such  false  opin- 
ions were  regarded  as  crimes;  and  as  injuries 
to  the  soul  are  greater  than  injuries  to  the  body, 
and  as  apostasy  from  God  is  a  greater  sin  than 
treason  to  the  state,  it  is  not  strange  that  no 
punishment  was  deemed  too  severe  for  these,  the 
greatest  and  the  most  pernicious  crimes. 

Thus,  by  the  fifteenth  century  the  abandon- 
ment of  Christ's  principles  seemed  to  be  com- 
plete. The  bond  which  united  the  church  was 
not  loyalty  to  Christ,  but  loyalty  to  the  Bishop 
of  Rome.  The  Christian  brotherhood  was 
abandoned,  and  for  it  was  substituted  an  elabo- 

1  I  assume,  without  discussion,  that  sin  consists  in  the  act  of 
the  will,  and  therefore  that  no  purely  intellectual  act  can  be 
sinful,  though  it  may  grow  out  of  sin  or  lead  into  sin. 


THE  EVOLUTION  OF  THE  CHURCH.    163 

rate  ecclesiastical  hierarchy.  The  principle  that 
the  only  force  to  be  used  in  the  church  is  that 
of  the  individual  conscience  had  given  place  to 
the  use  of  the  rack,  the  fagot,  and  the  sword. 
The  medal  given  by  Gregory  VII.  to  the 
Knights  of  St.  John,  having  the  cross  on  one 
side  and  the  sword  on  the  other,  was  a  true  sam- 
ple of  the  adoption  by  the  church  of  the  military 
methods  of  the  pagan  empire.  The  very  word 
"spiritual"  had  lost  its  signification.  Ecclesi- 
astics, if  they  were  duly  ordained ;  buildings,  if 
they  were  properly  consecrated ;  and  even  lands, 
if  they  belonged  to  the  church,  had  become 
"spiritual." 

A  beautiful  legend  of  this  epoch  illustrates  the 
change  which  had  passed  over  the  spirit  of  the 
church.  According  to  this  legend,  Jesus  Christ 
comes  back  upon  the  earth,  and  shows  himself 
at  a  great  auto  cla/e  in  Seville,  where  hundreds 
of  heretics  are  burned  in  his  honor.  He  walks 
about  in  the  ashes  of  the  martyrs.  The  common 
people  throng  about  him,  and  he  blesses  them. 
The  chief  Inquisitor  causes  him  to  be  arrested 
and  at  midniolit  visits  him  in  his  cell.  "You 
are  wi*ong,"  says  the  Inquisitor,  "in  coming 
again  to  the  earth  to  interfere  in  the  work  of 
your  church.  You  were  wrong  not  to  accept 
the  offer  of  the  Tempter,  wrong  to  undertake  to 
convert  the  world  by  silent  and  spiritual  forces. 


164     THE  EVOLUTION  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 

There  are  but  three  forces  on  earth  which  can 
keep  humanity  in  check,  —  the  miracle,  the  mys- 
tery, and  the  authority.  You  have  rejected 
them  all,  to  proclaim  a  freedom  and  a  love  for 
which  mankind  are  not  ready.  It  has  been 
necessary  for  the  church  to  correct  your  work 
and  supplement  it  with  the  sword  of  Caesar. 
You  also,  to-morrow,  shall  be  burned,  for  you 
shall  not  be  permitted  to  interfere  with  the 
work  of  your  church."  Christ  answers  not  a 
word,  looks  into  the  eyes  of  the  Inquisitor  with 
mild,  familiar  gaze,  then  stoops  and  kisses  the 
old  man  on  his  bloodless  mouth.  The  old  man 
trembles,  opens  the  cell  door,  and  bids  the  Mas- 
ter depart,  never  to  return.  Eloquently  does 
the  legend  indicate  the  change  which  had  come 
over  the  spirit  of  Christ's  church  since  the  days 
of  Christ. 

And  yet,  if  Christianity  had  been  corrupted 
by  paganism,  paganism  had  been  ameliorated  by 
Christianity.  The  Roman  Catholic  Church  was 
not  exceptionally  cruel ;  it  shared  the  cruelty  of 
a  cruel  age.  Really  denying,  it  in  form  recog- 
nized Christ's  fundamental  principle,  that  force 
is  not  to  be  used  in  the  maintenance  of  his  king- 
dom. It  did  not  itself  punish  heresy.  It  tried 
and  condemned  the  heretic,  and  then  turned  him 
over  to  the  civil  authorities  to  be  punished  for 
the  crime  of  which  he  was  convicted.     If  the 


THE  EVOLUTION  OF  THE  CHURCH.     165 

state  refused  to  punish  crime  and  maintain  order 
and  truth,  the  church  absolved  the  citizens  from 
their  allegiance  to  the  king  on  the  ground  that 
the  king  had  failed  of  his  solemn  duty.  If  like 
Frederick  II.  of  Germany,  the  king  was  an  in- 
fidel, or  like  John  of  England,  an  apostate,  the 
church  claimed  the  right  to  dethrone  him  and 
put  another  and  a  loyal  king  in  his  place.  But 
the  punishments  inflicted  for  heresy  were  in- 
flicted in  the  name  of  the  state,  to  whose  mercy 
the  church  in  terms  always  commended  the 
heretic. 

The  Roman  Catholic  bureaucracy,  unlike  that 
of  imperial  Rome,  was  a  democratic  bureau- 
cracy. The  humblest  person  might,  and  some- 
times did  become  Pope,  and  he  earned  that  office 
by  services  rendered,  not  always  indeed  to  hu- 
manity, but  always  to  the  church.  The  bro- 
therhood which  Christ  had  sketched  existed  in 
fragmentary  and  modified  forms  in  various  mo- 
nastic orders.  The  Latin  tongue  was  adopted  as 
the  language  of  the  church  under  all  skies  and 
in  all  nations.  The  church,  by  preaching  the 
unity  of  God,  laid  the  foundation  for  a  true 
unity  of  Christendom.  The  confederation  of 
the  churches  throughout  the  Roman  empire 
created  a  common  life.  Poverty  in  one  section 
was  felt  as  a  common  sorrow,  and  was  alleviated 
by  contributions  from  the  churches  far  and  near. 


166     THE  EVOLUTION  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 

The  foundation  of  a  public  opinion  was  laid  in 
a  system  of  instruction,  whicli,  emanating  from 
and  ruled  over  by  one  head,  was  essentially 
one,  and  by  a  spiritual  life  which,  though  cor- 
rupted by  gross  superstitions,  bound  the  church 
together.  The  Pope  was  without  any  consider- 
able army.  His  only  force  was  this  public  opin- 
ion which  the  church  had  created  and  kept  alive. 
It  was  before  this  public  opinion  that  kings 
trembled  and  bowed.  It  was  to  this  public 
opinion  that  finally  the  church  itself  was  com- 
pelled to  bow. 

Though  the  Bishop  of  Rome  took  the  place  of 
the  Emperor  of  Eome,  and  though  allegiance 
to  him,  not  to  the  invisible  Christ,  became  the 
bond  of  union  of  the  church,  still  the  emperor 
was  not  deified.  He  was  not  God,  but  the 
Vicar  of  God.  Households  raised  no  altars 
to  his  name;  no  church  worshiped  him;  and 
when  at  St.  Peter's  the  Host,  symbol  of  Christ, 
was  raised  in  air,  Pope,  cardinal,  bishoj),  priest, 
altar  boy,  and  peasant  bowed  together  in  rev- 
erence before  it. 

The  Reformation  was  primarily  the  protest 
of  the  Teutonic  race  against  the  imperialism  of 
Rome.  The  doctrine  that  every  man  shall  give 
account  of  himself  to  God  was  Luther's  war- 
cry,  and  it  became  the  central  doctrine  of  Cal- 
vinism.    The  early  Reformers  did  not  see  the 


THE  EVOLUTION  OF  THE  CHURCH.     167 

full  significance  of  this  doctrine,  but  it  neces- 
sarily carries  with  it  the  abolition  of  the  use 
of  force  in  the  church.  The  last  remnant  of 
Roman  militarism  lingers  in  the  ecclesiastical 
trials  of  our  day,  whose  only  penalty  upon  the 
offending  clergyman  is  a  new  ecclesiastical  affi- 
liation, with  usually  a  larger  congregation  and 
a  greater  influence  and  prestige  than  before. 
Protestantism,  abandoning  the  doctrine  of  force, 
abandoned  also  the  Roman  emperor  as  the  cen- 
tre of  the  church,  and  loyalty  to  the  Roman 
emperor  as  its  bond  of  union.  But  it  did  not 
make  Jesus  Christ,  as  a  personal  and  living 
Master,  its  centre,  nor  has  it  been  content  to 
make  simple  loyalty  to  him  the  only  condition 
of  membership  and  the  only  bond  of  union.  In 
lieu  thereof  it  offers  three  substitutes.  The  Re- 
formed churches  propose  a  creed;  they  recur 
from  Roman  imperialism  to  Greek  philosophy; 
the  church,  from  being  an  army,  becomes  a 
school  of  philosophy.  The  Anglicans  af^rm  an 
apostolical  succession;  they  recur  to  Judaism; 
and  propose,  as  the  bond  uniting  their  churches 
in  an  organism,  a  spiritualized  survival  of  the 
Aaronic  priesthood.  Finally,  the  Independents 
abolish  church  unity  altogether ;  and  for  a  plan- 
etary system  substitute  a  universe  of  wandering 
comets.  Thus  in  the  Protestant  church  of  to- 
day the  use  of  force  as  a  means  of  maintaining 


168      THE  EVOLUTION  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 

authority  is  abandoned,  though  there  is  not  yet 
a  frank  recognition  of  the  supreme  authority 
of  conscience  ;  and  offices  are  coming  to  be 
places  of  service,  not  of  authority,  though  the 
distinction  between  the  two  functions  is  not 
sharply  drawn.  But  the  problem  of  church 
unity  remains  still  unsolved.  The  church  of  to- 
day is  still  a  composite.  In  it,  more  than  in 
any  other  organization,  is  the  spirit  of  faith  and 
hope  and  love  manifested.  Its  life  is  the  life  of 
Christ,  but  its  organization  is  still  pagan,  Jew- 
ish, or  a  composite  of  the  two.  The  organi- 
zation of  the  church  of  Home  is  a  survival  of 
Caesarism;  that  of  Anglicanism  is  a  survival 
of  Judaism;  that  of  the  Reformed  or  Presbyte- 
rian churches  is  a  survival  of  Greek  schools  of 
philosophy;  and  that  of  the  Independents  or 
Congregationalists  is  a  survival  of  Teutonic  in- 
dividualism. 

What  of  the  future?  How  shall  the  unsolved 
problem  of  church  unity  be  solved?  Not  by 
going  back  to  papal  imperialism.  There  is,  in- 
deed, no  danger  to  American  civilization  in  the 
papal  church.  The  Inquisition  will  never  be 
revived.  It  belonged  not  to  the  church,  but  to 
a  barbarism  which  Christianity  has  already  con- 
quered. But  the  papal  church  is  neither  our 
model  nor  our  goal.  It  is  a  strange  amalgam. 
Its  bloodless  sacrifice  of  the  Mass,  its  Eternal 


THE  EVOLUTION  OF  THE  CHURCH.    169 

City,  its  Pope  and  priesthood,  are  relics  of  the 
sacrificial  and  hierarchical  system  of  Judaism. 
Its  mediatorial  theology,  its  intercession  of 
saints  and  angels,  its  adoration  of  images,  and 
its  absolutism  in  government  are  relics  of  Ro- 
man paganism.  Its  monasteries  and  convents 
are  curious  specimens  of  the  arrested  develop- 
ment of  that  brotherhood  of  man  which  has 
found  in  our  later  days  larger,  better,  and  more 
Christian  expression.  Its  confessional  for  pri- 
vate counsel,  its  absolution,  giving  public  and 
authoritative  declaration  of  the  forgiveness  of 
sins,  and  its  self-sacrificing  spirit,  sho^vn  in 
many  a  monk,  missionary,  and  priest,  all  mani- 
fest, though  in  forms  somewhat  archaic,  the 
spirit  of  the  gospel,  and  furnish  both  inspira- 
tion and  suggestion  to  those  who  deny  the  au- 
thority of  the  Church  of  Rome,  and  find  no  help 
to  their  spiritual  life  in  its  Jewish  and  Roman 
symbolism.  Take  it  for  all  in  all,  the  Christian 
evolutionist  sees  in  the  Church  of  Rome,  not 
an  antichrist,  but  a  specimen  of  arrested  Chris- 
tian development,  the  remedy  for  which  is  not 
war,  but  education,  not  theological  polemics,  but 
the  schoolhouse. 

Nor  will  church  unity  be  secured  by  accepting, 
as  the  final  word  of  God's  Providence,  Presby- 
terianism.  The  creed  is  not  the  centre  of  the 
church,  loyalty  to  the  creed  is  not  the  bond  of 


170      THE  EVOLUTION  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 

union.  The  intellect  is  divisive.  Creeds  are 
not  intended  to  unite  men,  but  to  separate  them. 
From  the  Nicene  Creed  down  to  the  last  creed  of 
Congregationalism,  there  is  not  one  which  had 
not  for  its  prime  object  the  exclusion  of  certain 
classes  of  men  from  the  organization  which 
adopted  the  creed  as  its  platform.  The  Nicene 
Creed  was  framed  to  exclude  the  Arians;  the 
Decrees  of  the  Council  of  Trent  were  framed  to 
exclude  Protestants;  the  Westminster  Confes- 
sion of  Faith  was  framed  to  exclude  Arminians ; 
the  Episcopal  Thirty -nine  Articles  were  framed 
to  exclude  Roman  Catholics  and  Independents; 
and  the  latest  creed  of  Congregationalism  was 
framed  to  exclude  Unitarians  and  Universalists. 
The  church  which  adopts  a  creed  as  its  centre, 
and  loyalty  to  a  creed  as  its  bond  of  union,  is 
a  school  of  philosophy.  Its  assumed  function  is 
to  teach  a  system,  not  to  proclaim  a  person. 

Nor  does  Episcoj)acy  answer  the  unanswered 
problem  of  church  unity.  The  bishops  of  the 
Episcopal  Church  propose  four  conditions  of 
Christian  union,  the  Bible,  the  Nicene  Creed, 
the  two  sacraments,  and  the  historic  Episcopacy. 
The  first  two  conditions  are  Protestant,  a  revival 
of  Greek  philosophy;  the  second  two  conditions 
are  Roman  and  Jewish,  a  revival  of  a  semi-im- 
perial hierarchy.  But  the  church  is  a  circle, 
not  an  ellipse ;  with  one  centre,  not  with  two  foci. 


THE  EVOLUTION  OF  THE  CHURCH.     171 

That  centre  is  loyalty  to  Christ  alone.  It  is 
not  loyalty  to  a  Book,  though  the  book  gives  us 
information  concerning  the  Christ ;  it  is  not  loy- 
alty to  a  creed,  though  the  creed  may  admirably 
express  the  opinion  of  a  noble  age  concerning  the 
Christ;  it  is  not  loyalty  to  an  organization  or 
hierarchy,  though  that  organization  or  hierarchy 
may  be  admirably  adapted  to  do  the  work  of  the 
Christ ;  and  it  is  not  loyalty  to  ceremonials,  few 
or  many,  though  they  may  be  splendid  and  use- 
ful symbols  of  the  spiritual  life. 

Nor  are  we  to  abandon  the  problem  of  church 
unity  altogether,  and  substitute  for  the  church 
of  Christ  an  aggregation  of  individual  and  inde- 
pendent assemblies.  If  the  papacy  is  a  survival 
of  Roman  imperialism,  Presbyter ianism  of  Greek 
philosophical  schools,  and  Episcopacy  of  a  Ju- 
daic hierarchy.  Independency  is  a  survival  of 
Teutonic  individualism ;  as  essentially  incongru- 
ous with  the  ideal  toward  which  all  churches 
should  set  their  face  as  are  either  of  its  sister 
systems.  The  church  of  Christ,  as  Christ  and 
the  Apostles  depicted  it,  is  an  organic  thing,  with 
a  unity,  an  organic  life,  a  historical  continuity. 
When  the  Apostle  declares  that  the  church  is 
the  bride  of  the  Lamb,  it  is  not  a  Solomon's 
harem  he  has  in  mind.  When  he  declares  that 
the  church  is  the  body  in  which  God  taber- 
nacles, he  is  not  thinking  of  a  number  of  (lis- 


172      THE  EVOLUTION  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 

jecta  77iemhra.  The  river  of  God  is  not  meant 
to  sej^arate  into  multitudinous  streams  as  it 
nears  tlie  sea,  like  the  Nile  at  the  Delta.  We 
do  not  all  come  unto  the  unity  of  the  faith  and 
of  the  knowledge  of  the  Son  of  God,  unto  a  per- 
fect man  in  Christ  Jesus,  by  splitting  up  into 
warring  sects  with  polemical  creeds  and  pugilistic 
piety.  The  glory  of  God  in  his  church  is  not 
best  seen  by  breaking  it  up  into  bits,  each  with 
its  own  peculiar  shape  and  peculiar  color,  tum- 
bled promiscuously  together  and  showing  a  new 
pattern  with  every  turn  of  the  kaleidoscope. 
The  church  described  in  the  New  Testament  is 
a  tree,  rooted  and  grounded  in  Christ ;  a  body, 
Christ  the  head ;  a  household,  Christ  the  father ; 
a  kingdom,  Christ  the  king.  The  true  church 
of  Christ  is  one ;  but  the  unity  of  the  church  lies 
in  the  future.  We  shall  not  come  to  it  until 
we  recognize  that  loyalty  to  Christ  —  the  his- 
toric Christ,  the  risen  and  living  Christ  —  is 
the  sole  condition  of  union,  and  in  that  union 
is  absolute  liberty  of  thought,  of  worship,  and 
of  action.  Christ  the  only  Pope,  Christ  the 
only  creed,  they  who  possess  Christ's  S23irit  the 
only  apostolical  succession ;  and  all  who  are  in 
Christ  one,  because  they  are  in  him,  and  are 
doing  his  work. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

THE  EVOLUTION   OF   CHRISTIAN   SOCIETY. 

The  first  century  of  tlie  Christian  era  was 
morally  tlie  darkest  in  history.  The  apparent 
splendor  of  the  Koman  Empire  did  not  conceal 
from  even  its  own  thinkers  the  corruption  which 
foretold  approaching  dissolution.  The  moral 
influences  of  the  past  seemed  to  have  spent 
themselves,  and  no  new  power  of  righteousness 
had  arisen  for  Rome's  redemption.  Govern- 
ment was  an  absolute  despotism.  Society  was 
divided  into  two  classes  —  many  paupers  and 
a  few  rich.  Public  corruption  was  not  a  pub- 
lic disgrace.  Gluttony  and  drunkenness  were 
fine  arts,  and  licentiousness  and  prostitution  a 
religion.  The  laborers  were  slaves  ;  public  edu- 
cation there  was  none  ;  marriage  was  a  partner- 
ship dissoluble  at  the  will  of  either  partner. 
In  Palestine,  also,  there  was  decay,  though  yet 
not  so  complete.  Thanks  to  the  system  of  pub- 
lic education  which  Moses  had  founded,  there 
was  a  parochial  school  for  the  children  of  the 
peasantry  in  every  village  that  had  a  synagogue  ; 
thanks  to  the  restrictions  which  Moses  had  put 


174      THE  EVOLUTION  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 

about  slavery  and  polygamy,  there  were  few  or 
no  slaves  in  Jewish  households,  and  not  a  harem 
in  all  Palestine.  And  yet  even  in  Palestine  the 
church  had  fallen  under  the  dominion  of  a  cor- 
rupt and  infidel  priesthood,  who  were  agnostics 
in  their  creed,  though  they  were  still  ritualists 
in  their  practice. 

At  this  time  there  appeared  a  young  man  of 
thirty  whose  brief  life  and  simple  teaching  were  to 
reconstruct  the  social  order.  He  never  went  be- 
yond the  bounds  of  his  own  little  province.  He 
gathered  a  few  hundred  of  the  common  peasan- 
try about  him,  and  talked  to  them  of  truth,  duty, 
love,  God.-  He  told  them  that  the  world  was 
not  orphaned  ;  that  it  had  a  Father  in  heaven 
who  loved  his  children,  cared  for  them,  suffered 
with  them.  He  told  them  that  all  men  were 
brethren ;  that  distinctions  between  rich  and 
poor,  high  and  low,  cultured  and  ignorant,  be- 
tween Hebrew  and  Greek,  between  Jew  and 
pagan,  —  differences  of  ritual,  of  creed,  of  condi- 
tion, of  race,  —  were  of  small  consequence ;  that 
the  only  \4tal  distinction  was  between  righteous- 
ness and  unrighteousness,  truth  and  falsehood, 
virtue  and  vice,  love  and  malice.  He  told  them 
that  life  was  for  service  ;  that  to  be  useful  was 
to  be  great ;  that  to  be  self-denying  was  to  be 
happy ;  that  sorrow  rightly  borne  was  a  blessing, 
not   a  bane ;   that   the   way  to   overcome   evil 


EVOLUTION  OF  CHRISTIAN  SOCIETY.    175 

was  by  love  and  patience,  not  by  force.  Moses 
had  told  the  Jew  to  love  his  Jewish  neighbor  as 
himself  ;  Jesus  told  him  that  the  apostate  and 
heretical  Samaritan  was  his  neighbor.  Moses 
had  forbidden  cruel  and  disproportionate  pun- 
ishments ;  only  maim,  he  said,  the  one  that 
maims  ;  kill  only  the  one  who  has  killed.  Christ 
went  further.  Do  not  punish  sin  at  all,  he 
said ;  cure  it.  Love  is  better  than  justice ;  a 
penitentiary  than  a  prison  ;  a  reformatory  than 
a  jail.  Kesist  not  evil ;  do  good  to  them  that  de- 
spitefully  use  you.  Moses  had  told  them  that 
God  was  justice  —  too  holy  to  clear  the  guilty  ; 
Jesus  told  them  that  God  was  love  —  so  holy 
that  he  would  cure  the  guilty.  He  came  as  a 
physician  to  cure  the  sin-sick.  Forgiveness  of 
sin,  deliverance  from  sin,  was  his  mission.  He 
told  them  that  not  ignorance,  nor  wi'etchedness, 
nor  race,  nor  even  sin  separated  the  soul  ^'om 
God.  The  more  the  soul  needed  God,  the 
readier  was  God  to  give  the  help  of  his  com- 
panionship. 

He,  however,  made  no  attempt  to  reform  the 
institutions  of  society.  He  declared  that  mar- 
riage was  not  a  commercial  partnership,  but  a 
divinely  ordained  and  ordered  life,  and  he  con- 
demned free  divorce ;  but  with  this  exception 
he  uttered  no  explicit  directions  respecting  civil 
or  political  institutions.     As  he  prescribed  no 


176      THE  EVOLUTION  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 

ritual,  creed,  or  ecclesiastical  organization,  so 
he  framed  no  civic  order.  He  uttered  no  coun- 
sels respecting  forms  of  government,  and  one 
cannot  deduce  from  his  teaching  whether  he 
approved  of  monarchy,  aristocracy,  oligarchy,  or 
democracy.  He  said  nothing  respecting  slav- 
ery, the  industrial  organization  which  was  then 
almost  universally  prevalent.  He  made  no  at- 
tempt to  institute  any  system  of  public  educa- 
tion or  to  improve  the  schools  which  in  Palestine 
were  connected  with  the  Jewish  synagogues. 
It  has  been  said  that  Jesus  Christ  was  the  first 
socialist.  This  is  certainly  an  incorrect,  if  not 
an  absolutely  erroneous  statement.  It  would  be 
more  nearly  correct  to  say  that  he  was  the  first 
individualist.  The  socialist  assumes  that  the 
prolific  cause  of  misery  in  the  world  is  bad  social 
organization,  and  that  the  first  duty  of  the  phi- 
lanthropist is  to  reform  social  organizations. 
Christ  assimied  that  the  prolific  cause  of  misery 
in  the  world  is  individual  wrong  doing,  and  he 
set  himself  to  the  work  of  curing  the  individual. 
He  was  not  a  reformer,  he  was  a  life-giver,  and 
giving  life  he  left  it  to  form  its  own  social  as 
its  own  religious  organizations.  But  he  taught 
both  implicitly  and  explicitly  that  the  effect  of 
the  life  which  he  gave  woidd  be  to  change  radi- 
cally the  social  organizations  of  the  world.  His 
first  preaching  was  as  a  herald  proclaiming  that 


EVOLUTION  OF  CHRISTIAN  SOCIETY.    177 

the  kingdom  of  God  was  at  hand.  His  first 
great  sermon,  the  only  one  which  has  been  pre- 
served to  us  in  anything  like  completeness,  was 
an  exposition  of  the  principles  which  would  un- 
derlie and  the  spirit  which  would  pervade  this 
kingdom.  And  the  disciple  who  stood  nearest 
to  him,  and  understood  him  best,  declared  in 
the  later  years  of  his  life,  his  faith  in  the  social 
and  civic  character  of  Christianity  by  the  as- 
sertion that  the  kingdoms  of  this  world  would 
become  the  kingdom  of  our  Lord  and  of  his 
Christ. 

In  order  to  understand  the  nature  of  the  life 
which  Jesus  Christ  imparted,  we  must  take  into 
account  the  Jewish  religion,  upon  which,  as  on 
a  foundation,  he  based  his  own  instructions.  We 
must  remember  that  Judaism  and  Christianity 
are  the  same  religion,  one  in  the  bud,  the  other 
in  the  blossom.  Faith  in  man  is  as  characteris- 
tic of  this  religion  as  faith  in  God.  According 
to  its  teaching,  the  whole  hmnan  race  descends 
from  one  pair  and  have  one  blood.  The  kin- 
ship which  unites  men  in  one  great  brotherhood 
is  more  fundamental  and  more  enduring  than 
that  which  unites  them  in  separate  tribes,  na- 
tions, or  races.  Man,  not  a  particular  class  or 
clan  of  men,  is  made  in  God's  image.  To  man 
it  is  given  to  exercise  dominion  over  all  nature. 
Sin  is  a  fault  not  natural,  but  distinctly  and 


178      THE  EVOLUTION  OF  CHBISTIANITY. 

emphatically  unnatural,  contra-natural,  against 
man's  true,  real  nature.  The  theology  of  Ju- 
daism is  based  on  the  fundamental  doctrine 
that  man  is  of  kin  to  God.  The  religious  ap- 
peals of  the  prophets  are  to  man's  inherent 
and  indestructible  divine  nature.  The  civic 
institutions  of  Judaism  are  based  on  the  same 
fundamental  assumption,  —  man's  inherent  ca- 
pability to  solve  the  problems  of  his  own  destiny 
under  the  immediate  guidance  and  direction  of 
God.  When  the  Jewish  commonwealth  was  to 
be  founded,  the  assent  of  the  people  was  first 
secured.  Not  even  God  would  assume  to  be 
their  king  until  they  had  by  popular  suffrage  ac- 
cepted him.i  The  officers  of  the  commonwealth 
were  similarly  elected  by  popular,  if  not  by  uni- 
versal suffrage,  and  were  responsible  to  the  peo- 
ple who  had  elected  them.  The  problems  of  the 
national  life  were  discussed  and  determined  by 
two  representative  bodies,  a  Great  Congregation, 
answering  to  our  House  of  Representatives,  and 
a  Council  of  Elders,  answering  to  our  Senate. 
Local  self-government  was  provided  for  by  the 
organization  of  the  nation  into  twelve  tribes, 
each  with  its  separate  territory.  Government 
was  divided  into  three  great  departments,  the 
legislative,  the  executive,  and  the  judicial ;  a 
division  which  experience  has  since  demonstrated 

^  Exodus  xix.  3-8. 


EVOLUTION  OF  CHRISTIAN  SOCIETY.    179 

to  be  essential  to  the  continuance  of  freedom. 
The  adjustment  of  penalty  to  transgression  was 
not  left  to  the  discretion  of  judges,  nor  to  that 
of  an  imperial  despot,  but  was  determined  by- 
explicit  and  definite  statutes.  Neither  landed 
gentry  nor  hereditary  caste  was  allowed  in  this 
commonwealth.  A  priesthood  was  organized, 
but  it  was  forbidden  any  share  in  the  distribu- 
tion of  the  land,  and  was  made  dependent  on 
the  voluntary  contributions  of  the  people.  Ag- 
riculture was  encouraged,  war  was  discouraged  ; 
slavery  and  polygamy  were  hedged  about  with 
such  restrictions  that  they  both  ceased  to  exist ; 
the  education  of  the  common  people  was  pro- 
vided for,  at  first  by  itinerant  prophets  and 
Levites,  later  by  parochial  schools  connected 
with  the  synagogues  ;  and  when  finally  the  re- 
public became  a  monarchy,  the  appointment  of 
a  king  was  permitted  only  as  a  concession  to 
public  prejudice.^ 

To  a  people  thus  prepared  by  a  conception 
of  hmnan  dignity  unparalleled  elsewhere  among 
the  nations  of  the  earth,  comes  the  Christ.  His 
coming  gives  to  all  that  believe  in  him  a  new 
sense  of  the  value  and  the  dignity  of  mankind. 
Whatever  our  estimate  of  Christ  may  be,  the 

1  A  fuller  exposition  of  the  practical  principles  of  the 
Hebraic  commonwealth  will  be  found  in  my  Jesus  of  Naza- 
reth, chap.  ii. 


180     THE  EVOLUTION  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 

estimate  of  tlie  Apostolic  cliurcli  is  not  doubt- 
ful. Mattliew  saw  in  him  tlie  Messiah,  the  Son 
of  the  Living  God  ;  John  beheld  him  the  Word 
of  God  made  flesh  and  tabernacling  among  us. 
Paul  bowed  the  knee  to  him  as  one  who,  being 
in  the  form  of  God,  beggared  himself  that  he 
might  be  made  in  the  form  of  a  servant ;  the 
unknown  author  of  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews 
believed  him  to  be  the  creator  of  the  world,  the 
brightness  of  God's  glory,  and  the  express  image 
of  his  person.  Put  what  philosophical  interpre- 
tation we  may  upon  their  expressions  of  primi- 
tive faith,  we  cannot  doubt  that  those  who  ut- 
tered them  saw  in  this  coming  of  God  into  a 
human  life^  a  new  glorification  of  humanity. 
The  Roman,  by  deifying  man  had  degraded  the 
conception  of  God ;  the  Christian,  by  humaniz- 
ing God  had  glorified  the  conception  of  man. 
For  God  had  chosen  man  to  be  his  tabernacle, 
his  dwelling  place,  his  image,  the  medium  for 
his  manifestation  of  himself. 

Entering  humanity,  God  entered  into  one 
of  the  humblest  class.  It  was  not  priest  or 
king,  but  peasant  child,  whom  he  chose  for  his 
indwelling.  So  entering  life,  he  addressed  him- 
self to  the  lowest  and  the  outcast.  He  recog- 
nized a  divinity  in  every  man,  and  spake  that 
he  might  evoke  and  inspire  that  divinity.  Him- 
self a  peasant  in  his  youth,  he  gathered  his  im- 


EVOLUTION  OF  CHEISTIAN  SOCIETY.    181 

mediate  disciples  from  tlie  peasant  class.  The 
nascent  Clu'istianity  caught  this  spirit  of  its 
founder  and  entered  the  Roman  Empire  at  the 
bottom.  It  passed  by  the  rich  and  the  noble,  it 
gathered  its  recruits  from  the  freedmen  and  the 
slaves.  The  message  of  the  Christian  religion 
to  a  i^eople  living  in  hopelessness  was  one  of 
inspiration.  You  are,  it  said  to  them,  the  chil- 
dren of  God ;  you  have  before  you  an  immortal 
destiny  ;  the  world's  deliverer,  who  is  yet  to  be 
crowned  Lord  of  lords  and  King  of  kings,  is 
one  of  your  own  class,  a  peasant  like  yourself ; 
God  has  entered  him  that  he  may  enter  you, 
and  in  him  has  glorified  the  humblest  and  the 
lowest.  Human  hearts  responded  to  this  trum- 
pet-call of  hope.  Self-respect  and  with  it  mu- 
tual respect  were  aroused  in  the  hearts  of  a 
class  which  had  hitherto  kno\vn  only  universal 
contempt.  The  history  of  the  first  four  cen- 
turies of  the  Christian  church  is,  politically 
speaking,  the  history  of  a  great  popular  upris- 
ing, the  cause  of  which  was  the  awakening  of  a 
profound  and  inspiring  religious  life.     When  u^, 

,^ie  fourth  century  Cmistnnt^'^^^  yiaLlpfl  nnri  rnndt^ 

Christianity  the  religion  of  the  state,  it  was  to  a 
new-born  jIcu^o or nrjr  h()  yiVlrVfl  ^  it  wf^s  a  new- 
— hnv}^  (\(^mnovi\ov  he  si^pmioned  to  be  his  ally. . 
In  all  subsequent  history  the  power  of  the  Ro- 
man church  was  the  power  of  the  common  peo- 


182     THE  EVOLUTION  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 

pie.  The  Popes,  in  the  epoch  when  their  domin- 
ion was  least  questioned,  possessed  no  army  of 
any  consequence.  They  appealed  to  the  people, 
and  by  their  appeals  to  the  people  they  rided 
over  kings.  It  was  democracy  which  in  the  per- 
son of  Leo  III.  crowned  Charlemagne,  and  later 
in  the  person  of  Gregory  VII.  kept  the  Emperor 
of  Germany  shivering  in  a  penitent's  shirt,  wait- 
ing permission  to  enter  the  pontiff's  presence. 
The  Reformation  was  a  further  uprising  of  a 
more  enlightened  and  a  more  free-spirited  peo- 
ple. It  was  Teuton  versus  Roman.  Ahnost 
the  sole  power  of  Luther  in  his  battle  with 
Rome  was  the  power  of  a  public  opinion  which 
Rome  could  neither  suppress  nor  control.  It 
was  public  opinion  which  enabled  Henry  VIII. 
to  emancipate  England  from  the  political  power 
of  the  Pope ;  which  checked  Bloody  Mary  in  her 
sanguinary  course ;  pushed  on  Queen  Elizabeth 
to  a  larger  and  more  radical  reformation  than 
she  ever  intended  or  desired  ;  dethroned  and 
beheaded  Charles  I.,  and  dethroned  and  exiled 
James  11. ;  and  has  by  successive  revolutions, 
some  of  them  peaceful  and  others  warlike,  com- 
pletely changed  the  character,  while  preserving 
the  form,  of  the  British  Constitution. 

This  public  opinion  created  by  Christianity, 
organized  and  solidified  miconsciously  by  the 
Roman  Catholic    Church,  inspired  with  a  new 


EVOLUTION  OF  CHRISTIAN  SOCIETY.    183 

spirit  by  the  Teutonic  incursion,  and  at  once 
creating  and  re-created  by  Protestantism,  laid 
here  on  this  continent,  in  a  Christian  faith,  the 
foundation  of  a  new  form  of  government.  The 
Puritans  in  New  England,  the  Dutch  in  New 
York,  the  Roman  Catholics  in  Maryland,  the 
Anglicans  in  Virginia,  and  the  Hugiienots  in 
France,  widely  as  they  differed  from  one  an- 
other in  their  denominational  tenets,  possessed 
a  common  faith  in  God  as  the  All  Father,  and 
in  man  as  his  child.  They  derived  from  a  com- 
mon source  —  the  Jewish  and  the  Christian 
Scriptures  —  that  faith  in  the  capacity  of  man 
without  which  free  institutions  are  impossible. 

They  thus  prepared  this  country  for  that  gov- 
ernment by  public  opinion  which  is  the  essence 
of  a  true  democracy.  Jefferson  is  reputed  to 
have  said  that  if  he  had  to  choose  between  a 
country  with  newspapers  and  without  govern- 
ment, and  a  country  with  government  and  with- 
out newspapers,  he  would  choose  the  former. 
To  say  that  Americans  have  chosen  the  former 
would  be  to  sacrifice  truth  to  antithesis ;  but 
they  have  developed  a  life  in  which  newspapers 
make  and  unmake  governments.  The  news- 
paper is  the  voice  of  public  opinion,  and  it  is 
this  fact  which  gives  the  press  its  power.  The 
voice  is  sometimes  coarse,  sometimes  immoral, 
oftener  unmoral;  l)iit   it  faithfully  repeats  the 


184      THE  EVOLUTION  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 

sentiments  of  its  constituency.  The  newspaper 
brings  the  community  to  a  consciousness  of  its 
own  inner  life.  Each  separate  journal  reflects 
by  its  advertisements  the  trade,  by  its  news 
columns  the  conduct,  by  its  editorials  the 
thoughts  and  feelings,  of  the  world  whose  or- 
gan it  is.  And  every  newspaper  is  an  organ 
of  some  constituency.  Whenever  it  breaks  away 
from  its  constituency  and  misrepresents  its  read- 
ers, it  loses  its  power  and  prestige,  as  more  than 
one  instance  in  the  history  of  American  jour- 
nalism demonstrates.  To  thoughtful  men  the 
condition  of  American  journalism  is  far  from 
satisfactory ;  the  press  of  to-day  is  more  enter- 
prising than  educative ;  and  there  seems  to  be 
even  a  decadence,  moral  and  intellectual,  since 
the  days  of  Greeley,  Raymond,  Bryant,  and 
Bowles.  But  to  the  student  of  our  national  life 
the  reason  is  plain.  Our  public  schools  have 
taught  great  masses  of  men  to  read  who  have  not 
yet  learned  to  think ;  and  our  more  widely  cir- 
culated, not  necessarily  our  more  influential  jour- 
nals, represent  a  reading,  but  not  a  thoughtful 
constituency.  It  is  on  the  whole  an  advantage 
to  have  life  photographed ;  it  is  well  that  half 
the  world  should  know  how  the  other  half  lives ; 
and  the  evolutionist  looks  with  hope  for  the  day 
when  a  better  education  will  correct  the  evils  of 
an  imperfect  education,  and  the  press  will  im- 


EVOLUTION  OF  CHRISTIAN  SOCIETY.    185 

prove  because  the  public  whose  voice  it  is  has 
improved. 

Meanwhile  we  can  hardly  fail  to  see,  whether 
the  fact  inspires  satisfaction  or  regret,  that  the 
press  is  really  more  potent  than  legislatures. 
To  vacate  one  of  the  more  influential  editorial 
chairs  for  a  seat  in  Congress  is  a  distinct  descent 
from  a  position  of  larger  to  one  of  lesser  influence. 
The  press  in  reflecting  helps  also  to  shape  pub- 
lic opinion,  which  in  turn  creates  legislatures  and 
coerces  them  to  do  its  bidding.  Our  lawmakers 
no  longer  really  govern,  nor  even  discuss  prob- 
lems of  government ;  they  only  embody  in  legal 
forms  the  decisions  to  which  the  community  has 
come,  by  discussion  in  public  assemblages  and 
through  the  public  press.  Every  interest  has  to- 
day its  journal,  and  almost  every  interest  its  Con- 
gTCss.  A  Prison  Congress  outhnes  and  demands 
prison  reform  ;  a  Banking  Association  formu- 
lates the  principles  of  banking  and  currency  to 
be  incorporated  in  state  and  national  legislation  ; 
a  Lake  Mohonk  Conference  shapes  the  course  of 
the  nation  towards  the  Indians  ;  a  Civil  Service 
Reform  Association  secures  reform  as  fast  as  it 
is  able  to  create  a  public  opinion  favorable  to 
reform ;  a  Liquor  Dealers  Association  demands 
less  restraint,  and  various  temperance  and  Chris- 
tian bodies  demand  more  restraint,  on  the  liquor 
traffic,  and  legislation  oscillates  between  the  two, 


186      THE  EVOLUTION  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 

almost  exactly  registering  the  state  of  public 
opinion  in  eacli  local  community.  Thus  for  a  gov- 
ernment of  the  one  over  the  all  (monarchy)  and 
government  of  the  few  over  the  many  (oligar- 
chy) has  been  substituted  that  self-government, 
through  the  power  of  a  public  opinion,  which 
gives,  not  indeed  always  the  best  immediate  gov- 
ernment, but  always  the  freest,  the  most  progres- 
sive, and  the  most  hopeful  for  the  future.  It  is 
needless  to  trace  in  further  detail  the  progress 
of  this  development.  Enough  has  been  said  in 
this  rapid  survey  to  show  that  Christianity  is 
the  source  of  that  uprising  in  the  individual 
without  which  the  uprising  of  the  mass  would 
have  been  impossible.  All  good  government  is 
aristocratic,  that  is,  the  government  of  the  best 
over  the  inferior.  Various  attempts  have  been 
made  in  the  world's  history  to  select  the  best 
class  to  rule  over  the  inferior  classes.  Chris- 
tianity evokes  the  best  in  each  individual  to  rule 
over  his  inferior  self,  and  thus  lays  the  founda- 
tion for  self-government  in  the  community  by 
making  possible  self-government  in  the  indi- 
vidual. 

If  the  reader  believes  this  rapid  survey  of 
the  political  history  of  Europe  to  be  correct,  he 
will  readily  see  that  Christianity,  in  creating 
government  by  public  oj)inion,  has  with  it  cre- 
ated great  political  and  social   changes.     It  is 


EVOLUTION  OF  CHRISTIAN  SOCIETY.    187 

not  possible  within  the  limits  of  a  single  chapter 
to  trace  these  changes  in  detail,  nor  is  it  neces- 
sary. It  is  sufficient  to  indicate  very  briefly 
some  of  the  more  important  of  them.  He  who 
is  interested  in  tracing  them  out  more  fully  will 
find  the  material  in  such  works  as  Charles  L. 
Brace's  "  Gestae  Christi,"  Dr.  R.  S.  Storrs' 
''  Historical  Evidences  of  Christianity,"  and 
Lecky's  "  History  of  Christian  Morals. " 

I.  Government  has  passed  through  one  radi- 
cal change,  but  only  to  enter  upon  another 
which  may  possibly  prove  to  be  not  less  radical. 
The  earliest  government  was  that  of  the  family ; 
and  the  earliest  tribal  and  national  governments 
were  formed  upon  the  pattern  of  the  family. 
The  king,  as  father  of  his  nation,  ruled  over  it. 
He  was  thought  to  be  endowed  with  a  super- 
natural grace  and  wisdom  ;  and  his  people  were 
regarded  as  children,  quite  unable  to  care  for 
themselves.  Christianity  has  already  proved  to 
the  German  race,  and  is  convincing  the  Latin 
races,  that  men  are  men,  not  children,  and  do 
not  need  a  political  father  to  take  care  of  them. 
Under  this  tuition  the  first  step  is  to  take  from 
the  king  his  paternal  authority,  to  organize  the 
state  upon  the  principle  of  the  sovereignty  of 
the  people,  and  to  reduce  government  to  the 
minimum  necessary  in  order  to  protect  the  com- 
munity from  wrong-doing  at  the  hands  of  other 


188       THE  EVOLUTION  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 

communities,  and  the  individual  in  the  commu- 
nity from  wrong-doing  at  the  hands  of  other 
individuals. 

But  already  men  are  beginning  to  question 
whether,  if  the  individual  can  take  care  of  him- 
self without  paternal  interference,  the  commu- 
nity cannot  by  common  action  take  care  of  its 
common  interests.  Undoubtedly  it  requires  a 
much  higher  degree  of  intellectual  and  moral 
development  for  fifty  million  people  to  cooper- 
ate in  industrial  partnership,  than  it  does  for 
any  individual  to  act  alone,  or  in  cooperation 
with  a  few  like-minded  with  himself.  Socialism 
affirms  that  men  possess  this  higher  intellectual 
and  moral  capacity ;  or  if  this  is  not  yet  their 
possession,  that  it  is  within  their  reach.  Thus, 
mider  the  influence  of  Christianity,  with  its 
optimistic  faith  in  man,  —  a  faith  quite  incredi- 
ble except  as  it  is  founded  upon  a  faith  in  God 
the  All-Father,  —  government  is  undergoing  a 
transition  through  three  successive  stages,  which 
may  be  expressed  by  the  words,  Paternalism, 
Individualism,  Fraternalism.  Even  the  ultra- 
socialist  is  not,  what  he  is  sometimes  called,  a 
paternalist.  He  is  a  fraternalist.  His  schemes 
are  founded  on  his  belief,  not  in  the  incapacity, 
but  in  the  capacity  of  man.  He  does  not  pro- 
pose that  a  paternal  government  shall  do  for 
him,  but  that  by  communal  action  he  shall  do 


EVOLUTION  OF  CHRISTIAN  SOCIETY.    189 

for  liimseK.  Bossism  has  been  driven  from  the 
church ;  is  being  driven  from  the  state ;  and 
the  socialist  hopes  that  it  will  be  driven  from 
the  mine  and  the  factory.  What  progress  has 
been  made  in  free  commonwealths  in  this  direc- 
tion is  hardly  realized  by  most  men,  so  rapidly 
and  yet  so  silently  have  the  changes  been 
wrought.  It  is  less  than  a  century  since  the 
question  was  seriously  discussed  whether  letters 
could  not  be  more  advantageously  carried  by 
private  enterprise  than  by  government.  Now, 
in  England,  the  telegraph  is  a  branch  of  the 
post-office ;  in  Smtzerland  all  express  business  is 
conducted  by  the  government ;  in  Australia  all 
railroads  are  o^\^ied  and  operated  by  the  govern- 
ment ;  while  city  after  city,  both  in  this  country 
and  abroad,  has  initiated  municipal  industries, 
including  governmental  ownership  and  control 
of  water  supply,  lighting,  and  transportation. 
I  make  no  mention  of  the  progress  in  this  di- 
rection in  Germany,  where  both  banking  and 
insurance  have  become  distinctly  governmental 
functions,  since  it  may  be  a  fair  question 
whether  in  Germany  these  are  the  products  of  a 
paternal  or  a  fraternal  government.  But  on  the 
other  hand,  the  student  of  modern  history  should 
not  overlook  the  fact  that  by  far  the  greatest 
proportion  of  the  educational  work  of  this  coun- 
try is  carried  on  under  the  immediate  direction 


190      THE  EVOLUTION  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 

of  the  people  themselves,  and  this  in  every 
grade  from  the  kindergarten  to  the  nniversity, 
and  even  to  the  post-graduate  and  professional 
school. 

This  movement  toward  fraternalism  in  gov- 
ernment is  still  in  its  experimental  stage,  and 
so  far  as  the  wisdom  of  these  experiments  de- 
pends on  the  question  of  the  proper  function  of 
government,  it  is  one  about  which  Christianity 
has  nothing  to  say.  It  may  well  be  that  as 
church  and  state  are  better  separated,  so  are 
church  and  industry.  It  may  well  be  that  the 
organization  which  governs  would  better  not  be 
the  organization  which  carries  on  great  indus- 
trial enterprises,  even  those  which  are  of  a  com- 
mon concern.  It  would  be  foreign  to  my  pur- 
pose to  enter  upon  that  question  here.  It  must 
suffice  to  say  that  the  Christian  evolutionist 
will,  if  he  is  consistent,  base  his  objection  to 
state  control  or  even  to  state  ownership  of  rail- 
roads, mines,  telegraphs,  banks,  and  other  com- 
mon enterprises,  on  some  other  ground  than  the 
absolute  and  ineradicable  incaj^acity  of  the  com- 
mon people  to  control  or  even  to  conduct  them.^ 

1  That  I  may  not  seem  to  my  reader  to  come  perilously 
near  a  debated  question  only  skillfully  to  evade  it,  I  may  add 
that  according  to  my  judgment  industrial  and  political  func- 
tions are  different;  that  any  movement  for  enlarging  the 
functions  of  government  in  the  direction  of  industrial  enter- 
prises should  be  very  cautious  ;  but  that  I  believe  —  subject 


EVOLUTION  OF  CHRISTIAN  SOCIETY.    191 

II.  The  relation  of  Christianity  to  science 
may  not  be  at  first  very  evident ;  for  the  Bible 
contains  no  revelation  of  any  scientific  truths  ; 
the  indications  are  that  its  writers  shared  the 
scientific  opinions  of  their  age  ;  and  if  Christ 
himself  knew  better  about  the  laws  of  nature 
than  did  his  contemporaries,  it  is  certain  that  he 
did  nothing  to  enlighten  them  on  that  subject. 
No  important  additions  to  the  scientific  know- 
ledge of  the  race  can,  so  far  as  I  know,  be  at- 
tributed to  the  early  Hebrew  people.  But  the 
scientific  development  which  characterizes  this 
age  would  have  been  impossible  had  it  not  been 
for  the  inculcation  of  two  moral  principles  by 
the  Bible,  to  both  of  which  I  have  already  re- 
ferred. 

The  first  is  the  Biblical  teaching  that  nature  is 
subject  to  the  dominion  of  men  ;  rather  the  pro- 
founder  teaching  that  the  physical  is  wholly  sub- 
ject to  the  dominion  of  the  spiritual.  Nature  is 
depersonified  in  the  first  chapter  of  Genesis,  and 

to  a  change  of  mind  as  the  result  of  actual  experiment  —  that 
the  people  have  the  right  to  conduct  any  public  industrial 
enterprises,  the  conduct  of  which  is  essential  to  their  common 
well  being,  such  as  street  lighting,  transportation,  water  sup- 
ply, and  the  like,  which  upon  actual  experiment  it  appears 
they  can  conduct  more  economically  and  efficiently  for  them- 
selves, through  public  officials,  than  by  entrusting  them  to 
private  enterprise  and  paying  "  what  the  business  will  bear." 


192      THE  EVOLUTION  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 

never  in  tlie  history  of  the  Jews  are  there  traces 
of  that  personification  which  is  ahnost  universal 
in  other  lands.  We  meet  in  Hebrew  literature 
with  no  sprites,  or  nymphs,  or  fauns,  or  gnomes, 
or  fairies,  or  Kobin  Goodfellows.  God  is  im- 
manent in  nature  ;  and  man  as  the  son  of  God 
shares  God's  mastery  and  dominion  over  nature. 
So  long  as  men  believed  that  the  lightning  was 
the  thunderbolt  of  Jove,  it  was  impossible  that 
they  should  attempt  to  catch  it  and  send  it  on 
their  errands.  The  faith  that  all  material  things 
are  subject  to  a  spiritual  lordship  is  essential  to 
scientific  exploration,  much  more  to  scientific 
dominion  over  nature. 

Nor  are  the  teachings  and  spirit  of  Christianity 
less  a  prerequisite  to  all  that  phase  of  scientific 
development  which  has  for  its  inspiration  a  sense 
of  public  weKare.  A  community  which  existed 
only  for  a  small  wealthy  class  could  not  have 
invented  the  press,  the  power  loom,  the  photo- 
graph, the  railroad,  the  steamboat,  and  the  tele- 
graph. The  secret  of  these  great  inventions  has 
been  the  uprising  of  the  people,  and  their  de- 
mand for  greater  facilities  and  a  larger  life. 
Thus  faith  which  sees  the  superiority  of  the  in- 
visible to  the  visible,  and  love  which  seeks  the 
greatest  good  of  the  greatest  number,  have  been 
necessary  partners  in  the  scientific  development 
of  the  race  ;  and  that  scientific  development  has 


EVOLUTION  OF  CHRISTIAN  SOCIETY.    193 

been  therefore  not  only  confined  to  Christendom, 
but  chiefly  to  those  regions  and  those  epochs  in 
which  Christian  life  and  spirit  have  been  most 
pervasive. 

III.  It  can  hardly  be  necessary  to  point  out 
the  very  apparent  fact  that  popular  education 
and  Christianity  have  been  both  contempora- 
neous and  geographically  co-terminous  ;  for  the 
schools  of  China  cannot  be  said  to  furnish  an 
education,  since  they  do  not  teach  their  pupils 
to  think.  In  the  first  century,  as  I  have  al- 
ready pointed  out,  the  only  system  of  popular 
education  in  the  Roman  Empire  was  that  which 
was  organized  in  connection  with  the  Jewish 
synagogues,  for  the  children  of  Jewish  parents. 
Primitive  as  were  the  methods  employed,  we 
might  learn  something  from  them,  for  these 
schools  furnished  both  religious  and  industrial 
education.  As  Christianity  extended  over  Eu- 
roj^e,  it  created  both  a  desire  for  knowledge  and 
the  schools  to  gratify  that  desire.  Every  mon- 
astery and  convent  had  its  library  ;  many  of 
them  their  schools  for  the  cliildren  of  the  to^vn. 
That  we  have  to-day  any  copies  of  the  Bible, 
or  of  the  Greek  and  Latin  classics,  is  due  to 
the  monastic  libraries  and  the  monastic  copy- 
ists. Modern  agricidture  dates  from  the  ex- 
perimental schools  of  the  Benedictine  monks. 
The  first   seeds  of  the  English  revolution  were 


194     THE  EVOLUTION  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 

sown  by  the  democratic  teaching  of  the  Fran- 
ciscan friars  in  the  towns  and  cities  of  England. 
When  public  education  had  gone  so  far  that  it 
became  dangerous  to  the  clergy,  the  clergy  en- 
deavored to  halt  it.  But  the  mind  refuses  to 
stop,  let  who  will  cry  halt !  When  ecclesiasti- 
cism  began  to  educate  men,  not  for  their  own 
sake,  but  for  the  sake  of  the  church,  democracy 
took  the  work  of  self-education  into  its  own 
hands.  The  public  school  has  taken  the  place 
of  the  parochial  school.  The  questions  that 
arise  between  the  two  are  not  those  of  method 
merely.  The  message  of  the  parochial  school 
is.  Believe  and  obey.  The  message  of  the  pub- 
lic school  is.  Inquire  and  act.  The  one  aims  to 
enforce  authority,  the  other  to  give  liberty  ;  the 
one  to  build  up  out  of  obedient  children  a  great 
church,  the  other,  out  of  independent  thinkers,  a 
free  commonwealth.  The  school  will  not  again 
nestle  under  the  rafters  of  the  monastery  or 
the  church ;  but  it  should  not  dishonorably  for- 
get its  parentage  because  it  has  grown  strong 
enough  to  live  alone. 

IV.  The  change  in  criminal  law  wrought  by 
Christianity  is  equally  plain,  and  may  be  indi- 
cated in  as  few  words.  The  punishments  of 
paganism  were  at  first  acts  of  personal  ven- 
geance. The  next  of  kin  was  left  to  avenge  the 
murder  of  his  relations.    Public  offenses  against 


EVOLUTION  OF  CHRISTIAN  SOCIETY.    195 

the  state  were  personal  wrongs  against  the  king, 
and  in  the  punishments  inflicted  he  embodied 
the  vindictive  justice  of  the  state,  when  he  did 
not  gratify  his  own  vindictive  passions.     How 
cruel  were  the  punishments  which  were  invented . 
under  the  inspiration  of  such  a  philosophy  we 
have  abeady  seen.     Christianity  declared  that 
it  was  not  the  function  of  men  to  judge  and  pun- 
ish their  fellow-men.     Judge  not,  Christ  said ; 
vindictive  justice  does  not  belong  to  man.     My 
followers  are  to  remit  sin,  not  to  avenge  it.    The 
Roman  Catholic  Church  has  accepted  this  mis- 
sion more  fully  than  has  the  Protestant  Church  ; 
and  in  this  fact  consists  one  great  element  of 
her  spiritual  power.     But,  gradually,  in  the  best 
penological  system  we  are  approximating  Chris- 
tian philosophy.     Our  prisons   are  made  peni- 
tentiaries ;  our   jails  reformatories.     The   most 
advanced  penologists  have  now  nearly  arrived 
at  the  conclusions  announced  as   premises   by 
Jesus  Christ,  eighteen  centuries  ago.    The  latest 
and  best  form  of  penal  administration  treats  the 
criminal  as  it  treats   the   lunatic,  —  imprisons 
him,  not  to  inflict  vengeance  on  him  for  a  crime 
committed,  but  to  cure  him  of  the  disposition 
to  commit  crime  in   the  future  ;    organizes  its 
punislmients,  its  industries,  its  schools,  with  re- 
ference to  creating  a  new  habit  of  life  and  a  new 
nature  in  the  criminal ;  detains  him  in  prison 


196     THE  EVOLUTION  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 

until  the  reform  is  accompli slied  ;  and  releases 
him  as  soon  as  satisfactory  evidence  is  afforded 
that  he  has  both  the  ability  and  the  steadfast 
purpose  to  live  henceforth  by  honorable  indus- 
try. Thus  redemption  is  substituted  for  ven- 
geance as  the  end  of  punislunent.  The  signifi- 
cance of  this  revolution  is  hardly  understood 
even  by  those  who  have  been  promoting  it ;  still 
less  by  the  public,  who  desire  only  to  inflict 
their  vengeance  on  the  criminal,  or  to  get  rid 
of  him  and  forget  him  altogether.  Space  does 
not  allow  me  to  trace  here  the  gradual  process 
by  which  this  evolution  in  criminal  jurispru- 
dence has  been  wrought,  and  show  how  to  the 
intervention  of  the  church  is  due  the  early  en- 
grafting of  the  principle  of  mercy  on  the  sys- 
tem of  so-called  justice,  —  a  principle  which  is 
radically  changing  the  original  stock.  It  must 
suffice  to  remind  the  reader  that  the  ecclesias- 
tical system  of  penances  and  purgatory  was  the 
first  organized  method  of  punishment  in  human 
society  of  which  the  avowed  end  was  not  ven- 
geance but  reformation  ;  that  the  right  of  sanc- 
tuary, the  essential  idea  of  which  was  derived 
from  the  old  Levitical  "  cities  of  refuge,"  was 
the  first  attempt  to  alleviate  the  administration 
of  a  rude  justice  by  the  jjrinciple  of  mercy ;  and 
that  courts  of  equity  were  created  to  mitigate 
the  severity  of  Roman  law  in  order  to  make  the 


EVOLUTION  OF  CHRISTIAN  SOCIETY.    197 

results  of  jurisprudence  accord  with  the  demands 
of  a  partially  christianized  conscience. 

V.  The  same  influence  which  gradually  eman- 
cipated the  state  from  the  despotic  control  of  an 
irresponsible  despot  gradually  took  the  shackles 
off  the  limbs  of  the  laborer.  The  Jewish  reli- 
gion honored  labor.  One  of  its  most  ancient 
traditions  represents  the  first  man  as  placed  in 
a  garden  to  dress  and  to  keep  it.  The  patri- 
archs, fathers  of  the  race,  were  men  of  peaceful 
industry,  not  warriors,  except  as  seK-protection 
necessitated  war.  The  greatest  king  of  Israel, 
David,  and  her  two  greatest  prophets,  Moses 
and  Isaiah,  were  taken  from  agricultural  pur- 
suits. The  nation  was  bidden  by  its  constitu- 
tion to  depend  on  a  volunteer .  militia,  to  allow 
no  standing  army.  The  Messiah  whom  the 
Christians  proclaimed  as  the  deliverer  of  the 
world  was  born  as  the  son  of  a  carpenter,  and 
had  himself  worked  at  the  bench.  His  imme- 
diate followers  were  peasants,  who  depended  for 
their  livelihood  on  the  work  of  their  own  hands. 
This  honor  paid  to  toil  was  carried  with  Chris- 
tianity wherever  it  went.  In  the  opinion  of  the 
Christian  church,  idleness  was  a  disgrace,  pov- 
erty was  not.  At  the  same  time  the  doctrine  of 
human  brotherhood  was  not  only  preached  by 
the  apostles  of  the  new  movement,  but  enforced 
by  the  consideration  that  the  time  was  short 


198     THE  EVOLUTION  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 

in  which  caste  distinctions  would  be  recognized. 
As  the  church  grew  in  power,  the  one  distinction 
between  clergy  and  laity  dwarfed  all  others. 
Thus  while  the  slave  was  taught  that  he  was  a 
son  of  God,  the  master  was  taught  to  treat  his 
slaves  as  a  brother  in  the  household  of  faith. 
Christianity  and  Roman  slavery  could  not  co- 
exist. At  first,  emancipation  was  of  individ- 
uals, then  of  increasing  numbers.  "  St.  Melanie 
was  said  to  have  emancipated  8000  slaves ;  St. 
Ovidius,  a  rich  martyr  of  Gaul,  5000  ;  Chroma- 
tious,  the  Roman  prefect  under  Diocletian,  1400 ; 
Hermes,  a  prefect  in  the  reign  of  Trajan,  1250. 
.  .  .  Numerous  charters  and  epitaphs  still  re- 
cord the  gift  of  liberty  to  slaves  throughout  the 
Middle  Ages,  for  the  benefit  of  the  soul  of  the 
donor  or  testator.  ...  In  the  twelfth  century 
slaves  were  very  rare.  In  the  fourteenth  cen- 
tury slavery  was  ahnost  unknown."  ^  Despite 
many  assertions  to  the  contrary,  despite  some 
ground  for  them  in  a  practical  ap)ostasy  from 
Christian  principle  within  the  church  of  Christ, 
it  may  be  safely  affirmed  that  emancipation  in 
Great  Britain  and  in  this  country  would  not 
have  been  possible  but  for  the  influence  of  Chris- 
tianity in  awakening  and  strengthening  those 
sentiments  of  humanity  which  finally  proved  too 
strong  for   the   political  and  conmiercial  influ- 

1  Lecky's  History  of  European  Morals,  ii.  73-76. 


EVOLUTION  OF  CHEISTIAN  SOCIETY.    199 

ences  leagued  together  to  perpetuate  and  extend 
the  slave-power. 

The  abolition  of  slavery  is,  however,  but  one 
step  of  that  continuous  and  progressive  change 
in  the  industrial  condition  of  mankind  which  is 
due  to  Christianity.  The  end  is  not  yet.  That 
change  is  seen  in  four  successive  stages  :  first, 
slavery,  in  which  the  capitalist  owns  the  laborer  ; 
second,  feudalism,  in  which  the  capitalist  owns 
the  land  and  has  a  lien  upon  the  laborer,  who  is 
attached  to  the  land  ;  third,  individualism,  in 
which  the  laborer  is  free  to  come  and  go  where 
and  as  he  will,  and  competition  is  relied  upon 
to  equalize  and  adjust  property  rights  and  the 
distribution  of  wealth  ;  fourth,  the  wages-system, 
under  which  a  few  men  become  the  owners  of 
all  implements  of  industry,  including  the  land, 
the  great  highways  of  commerce,  and,  under  our 
patent  laws,  the  great  forces  of  nature,  and  the 
many  use  these  implements  of  industry  in  pro- 
ductive toil  for  such  wages  as  can  be  agreed 
upon  by  the  two  parties.  This  is  not  worse 
than  slavery,  as  it  is  sometimes  said  to  be,  but 
infinitely  better,  —  if  for  no  other  reason,  be- 
cause the  workingman  is  free.  Nor  will  Ruskin 
and  Carlyle  be  able  to  carry  us  back  to  the 
feudal  system,  with  its  pseudo-charity  and  its 
real  oppression.  Yet  neither  is  it  the  finished 
kingdom  of  God.     A  system  of  industry  under 


200    THE  EVOLUTION  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 

which  one  man  may  acquire  in  a  lifetime  as 
much  money  as  Adam  could  have  laid  by  out  of 
his  earnings,  if  he  had  lived  till  our  time  and 
saved  one  hundred  dollars  each  working  day,  is 
not  a  perfected  system  of  hmnan  brotherhood. 
A  system  under  which  men  and  women  have  to 
work  twelve  or  fourteen  hours  a  day  in  order  to 
earn  bread  enough  to  sustain  life ;  under  which 
little  children  are  set  to  work  when  they  should 
be  at  school ;  under  which  Eve,  worn  out  by  the 
burden  of  child-bearing,  has  also  to  bear  Adam's 
burden  of  ill-remunerated  toil  ;  under  which 
God's  universal  gifts  to  his  children,  —  fresh  air, 
sunlight,  pure  water,  and  the  soil,  —  are  denied 
to  hundreds  of  thousands,  who  are  doomed  to  a 
life  of  drudgery  in  unsanitary  conditions,  and 
without  hope  of  self-improvement,  this  is  not  the 
ideal  brotherhood  which  the  Master  came  to  es- 
tablish upon  the  earth.  Nor  will  that  brother- 
hood be  established  until  the  democracy  of 
political  power,  founded  on  a  democracy  of  re- 
ligion and  education,  shall  be  accompanied  by 
an  industrial  democracy ;  until  the  tool  workers 
have  become  also  the  tool  owners,  and  class 
antagonisms  are  settled  by  the  simple  expedient 
of  making  the  same  class  both  capitalist  and 
laborer ;  until  labor  of  brain  and  hand  counts 
for  more  than  money  in  the  world's  market,  and 
the  present   aphorism   of   political  economy  is 


EVOLUTION  OF  CHRISTIAN  SOCIETY.    201 

revolutioiiizecl,  and  capital,  not  labor,  money  not 
men,  is  the  commodity  to  be  hired  in  the  cheap- 
est market. 

If  to  any  of  my  readers  these  seem  revolu- 
tionary sentences,  I  can  only  remind  them  of 
the  accusation  brought  against  Paul  and  his 
associates,  "  They  have  turned  the  world  upside 
down ;  "  and  add  my  conviction  that  the  accusa- 
tion was  quite  true.  Christianity  is  turning  the 
world  upside  down,  and  will  not  cease  so  to  do 
until  the  world  is  right-side  up.  That  all  ser- 
vice is  honorable  and  all  idleness  is  a  disgrace ; 
that  to  get  money  by  whatever  strategy  without 
furnishing  an  equivalent  is  a  dishonorable  spoli- 
ation ;  that  wealth  is  a  trust,  and  that  men  are 
to  be  measured,  not  by  what  they  possess,  but  by 
what  use  they  make  of  it ;  that  thmgs  are  for 
men,  not  men  for  things,  and  that  any  civiliza- 
tion is  wasteful  which  grinds  up  men  and  wo- 
men to  make  cheap  goods ;  that  industry  is  not 
righteously  organized  until  it  is  so  organized 
that  every  honest  and  willing  worker  can  find 
work,  and  find  work  so  remunerative  as  to  give 
him  and  his  children  an  opportunity  for  self- 
development  as  well  as  for  mere  life  —  these  are 
some  of  the  axioms  of  the  Christianity  of  Jesus 
Christ. 

The  evolution  of  Christianity  will  not  be  com- 
plete  until  on  these   principles  the  social  and 


202      THE  EVOLUTION  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 

industrial  structure  of  modern  society  is  built, 
and  there  is  much  for  the  reformer  to  do  before 
this  consmnmation  is  finally  and  fully  accom- 
plished. 


CHAPTER   VII. 

THE   EVOLUTION   OF  THE   SOUL. 

How  does  man  come  to  a  divine  manhood?  Is 
the  process  of  redemption  consistent  with  the  doc- 
trine of  evohition  ?  Can  the  doctrine  of  redemp- 
tion be  stated  in  the  terms  of  an  evohitionary 
philosophy  ?  Christlieb  has  said  that  the  whole 
Christian  creed  can  be  stated  in  two  words,  sin 
and  salvation.  Are  these  two  articles  of  our 
common  Christian  faith  consistent  with  the  doc- 
trine that  all  life,  spiritual  as  well  as  physical, 
proceeds  by  a  "  continuous  progressive  change, 
according  to  certain  laws,  and  by  means  of  resi- 
dent forces  "?  If  not.  Christian  faith  and  evo- 
lutionary philosophy  are  inconsistent,  and  we 
must  conclude  either  that  evolutionary  philoso- 
phy is  false ;  that  Christian  faith  is  false ;  or 
that  spiritual  life  is  not  subject  to  the  law  of 
all  other  forms  of  life.  For  any  belief  which 
eliminates  these  two  articles,  sin  and  salvation, 
from  the  Christian  creed  destroys  it  altogether. 
It  may  leave  us  theists,  but  not  Christians. 

The  evolutionary  philosophy  is  certainly  not 
consistent  with  the  popular  statement  of  either 


204     THE  EVOLUTION  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 

sin  or  salvation.  That  statement  is  briefly  this : 
God  made  man  perfect.  [  By  an  act  of  volmitary 
disobedience  man  fell.  A^^  result  of  that  fall, 
all  his  descendants  became  either  depraved,  i.  e., 
\  inherently  inclined  to  sin  (the  New  School  the- 
^ — Ofy),  or  sinful,  i.  e.,  inherently  guilty  before 
God  and  deserving  of  his  condemnation,  inde- 
pendent of  any  voluntary  conscious  act  com- 
mitted ,t  by  the  individual  (the  Old  School  the- 
ory). /From  this  lost  and  ruined  condition, 
produced  by  Adam's  Fall,  man  is  to  be  restored 
to  that  perfect  condition  in  which  he  was  origi- 
nally created.  By  this  process  of  grace,  either 
all  men  will  be  restored  to  Adamic  perfection 
(Universalism)  ;  or  a  certain  number  of  men 
specially  selected  for  such  restoration  by  God, 
the  rest  of  whom  he  has  been  pleased  to  pass  by 
(Calvinism)  ;  or  a  certain  number  self-selected, 
j^namely,  all  who  choose  to  repent  of  their  sin  and 
\^ccfipt  Christ  in  this  life  (Arminianism)  ;  or  in 
addition,  those  who,  not  having  understood  the 
terms  of  salvation  in  this  life,  receive  and  accept 
them  in  a  life  to  come  (the  Doctrine  of  Future 
Probation)  ;  or  finally,  all  those  who,  without 
ever  having  heard  of  divine  grace,  possess  such 
character  and  disposition  that  they  would  have 
accepted  the  divine  grace  if  they  had  known 
about  it  (Modern  New  England  Theology). 
This  restoration  is,  at  least  in  its  inception,  an 


THE  EVOLUTION  OF  THE  SOUL.       205 

instantaneous  act.  It  is  in  no  sense  a  gradual 
change.  The__aiLl4ect  of  it  passes  at  once  from 
darkness  into  the  light,  as  one  emerges  at  a 
given  instant,  in  a  swiftly  moving  train,  from 
a  tunnel  into  the  sunshine,  or  wakes  from  a 
long  sleep  to  find  the  room  flooded  with  day- 
light. Formerly  the  soul  was  expected  to  know 
the  month,  day,  hour,  of  the  transition.  If  he 
did  not,  his  conversion  was  looked  upon  with 
suspicion.  Xtefilogi^us  still_general|y  regard 
the  change  as  instantaneous,  though  it  is  prac- 
tically coiiceded  that  in  a  majority  of  cases  the 
time  of  the  change  cannot  be  definitely  known. 
The  soul  creeps  back  into  Eden  and  knows  not 
when  it  has  passed  the  cherubim  with  the  flam- 
ing sword.  The  ^vilderness"  has  become  so  blos- 
soming and  joyful  that  the  transition  is  not 
marked.  But  the  commonly  accepted  theory  re- 
mains the  same :  an  original  state  of  perfection  ; 
a  fall  by  a  representative  of  the  race ;  a  con- 
sequent universal  condition  of  sinfulness ;  and 
a  restoration  to  that  state  from  wliich  the  race 
feU.  1 

1  This  view  is  not  always,  nor  indeed  generally,  consistently 
held.  A  friend  of  mine  a  few  years  ago  heard  a  sermon  in  a 
back  country  district,  in  which  the  preacher  contended  that 
Adam  was  made  acquainted  by  direct  revelation  with  all  that 
modern  discovery  and  invention  has  given  to  us,  that  his 
knowledge  was  passed  down  by  tradition  to  his  descendants, 
that  it  was  gradually  lost  as  a  result  of  the  Fall,  that  this 


206    THE  EVOLUTION  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 

Now  the  doctrine  of  the  Fall  and  of  redemp- 
tion, as  thus  stated,  is  inconsistent  with  the 
doctrine  of  evolution.  It  is  impossible  to  recon- 
cile the  two.  Evolution  declares  that  all  life 
begins  at  a  lower  stage  and  issues  through  a 
gradual  development  into  a  higher ;  the  theology 
just  described  affirms  that  man  was  made  at  the 
highest  stage  and  fell  to  the  lower:  evolution 
declares  that  life  is  a  continuous  and  progressive 
change ;  this  theology,  that  spiritual  life  always 
begins  in  an  instantaneous  transformation  :  evo- 
lution, that  each  stage  in  the  process  of  life  is 
a  step  into  a  new  life  never  before  j)ossessed ; 
this  theology,  that  the  end  of  all  sj)iritual  pro- 
gress is  a  return  to  a  life  once  possessed, 
now  lost.  Evolution  is  quite  consistent  with 
theism,  —  with  the  doctrine  that  God  made  the 
world  and  rules  over  it,  working  out  his  pur- 
poses of  love  ;  with  the  doctrine  that  the  world 

traditional  knowledge  was  the  secret  of  the  so-called  "  lost 
arts,"  and  that  the  human  race,  through  redemption,  is  gradu- 
ally recovering  the  intelligence  as  well  as  the  moral  and  spir- 
itual perfection  originally  enjoyed  hy  Adam  and  Eve.  Few 
theologians,  however,  would  now  take  so  consistent  a  view  as 
this ;  the  original  doctrine  of  fall  and  salvation  is  generally 
combined  in  modern  preaching  with  a  doctrine  of  quasi  evolu- 
tion both  intellectual  and  moral ;  the  concession  is  made  to 
the  spirit  of  the  age,  that  in  many  respects  the  modern  Nine- 
teenth Century  Anglo-Saxon  is  superior  to  our  First  Parents. 
I  am  not  aware  of  any  attempt  to  reconcile  this  modern  view 
with  the  doctrine  of  the  Fall  in  its  original  form. 


THE  EVOLUTION  OF  THE  SOUL.        207 

IS  gradually  growing  better  under  the  ministry 
of  his  gracious  and  loving  presence.  But  to 
many  it  seems,  as  it  once  seemed  to  me,  incon- 
sistent with  the  two  cardinal  doctrines  of  the 
Christian  faith,  —  sin  and  salvation ;  to  deny 
the  two  most  fundamental  tenets  of  Christian 
revelation  and  of  Christian  experience  ;  to  re- 
duce sin  to  a  mere  imperfection  and  immaturity ; 
and  redemption  to  a  mere  process  of  growth  and 
ripening. 

If  I  were  still  of  the  same  opinion,  I  should 
not  be  a  Christian  evolutionist.  For  philosophy 
must  take  account  of  all  the  phenomena  of 
life ;  and  a  substantially  universal  consciousness 
testifies  to  the  reality  of  sin  and  remorse.  No 
philosophy  can  be  true  which  ignores  this  testi- 
mony. I  accept  the  evolutionary  philosophy  as 
an  interpretation  of  the  spiritual  life,  because  I 
have  come  to  believe  that,  rightly  apprehended, 
it  gives  a  more  rational  and  self -consistent  inter- 
pretation to  the  great  facts  of  sin  and  redemp- 
tion than  did  the  unevolutionary  philosophy 
which  accounted  for  sin  by  the  Fall  of  our  first 
parents,  and  made  redemption  consist  of  a  re- 
storation to  the  condition  which  they  had  lost. 
The  reader  will  pardon  me  if,  in  stating  the 
grounds  of  my  present  convictions  on  this  sub- 
ject, I  state  in  an  autobiographical  form  the  pro- 
cess by  which  I  was  led  to  them. 


208     THE  EVOLUTION  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 

When  the  evolutionary  philosophy  first  began 
to  be  discussed  in  theological  circles,  the  pro- 
gressive theologians  put  all  their  strength  into  a 
discussion  of  the  relation  of  evolution  to  theism. 
They  showed,  and  as  it  seemed  to  me  showed 
conclusively,  not  only  that  the  two  were  not  in- 
consistent, but  that  evolution  gave  a  grander 
view,  both  of  creation  and  providence,  than  did 
the  old  philosophy,  which  made  the  one  an  in- 
stantaneous act  and  the  other  a  constant  inter- 
ference. But  the  real  question,  the  relation  of 
evolution  to  redemption,  they  did  not  discuss  at 
all.  ^  Jesus  Christ  came  into  the  world  to  save 
sinners.  If  there  were  no  sinners,  only  imma- 
ture men,  how  could  there  be  either  a  salvation 
or  a  Saviour  ?  And  clearly,  sin  and  immaturity 
are  not  the  same.  The  immaturity  of  a  child  is 
charming.  Who  would  desire  to  see  him  a  little 
old  man  ?  But  the  willful  wickedness  of  a  child 
is  not  charming ;  it  is  odious.  Evolution,  in  de- 
nying, as  it  logically  must,  the  doctrine  of  the 
fall  of  the  race  in  Adam,  seemed  to  me  to  deny 
the  common  sinfulness  of  the  race,  which  I  had 
been  accustomed  to  trace  back  to  Adam's  Fall. 
Being  accustomed  all  my  life  to  gather  my 
theology  from  the  Bible,  I  went  to  the  Bible  to 

1  I  desire  to  express  my  indebtedness  for  tke  first  light  I 
received  on  this  subject  to  an  address  delivered  by  Ur.  R.  W. 
Raymond  before  the  Congregational  Club  of  New  York  city. 


THE  EVOLUTION  OF  THE  SOUL.       209 

make  a  fresh  investigation  of  this  subject.  In 
this  investigation  it  was  early  made  clear  to  me 
that  the  Bible  lays  no  such  stress  upon  the  Fall 
as  the  ecclesiastical  systems  have  clone.  There 
is  an  account  of  the  Fall  in  the  third  chapter 
of  Genesis  ;  but  elsewhere  in  the  Old  Testa- 
ment, no  direct  reference  to  it.  The  law  does 
not  mention  it;  the  Old  Testament  historians 
do  not  refer  to  it ;  the  poets  and  the  prophets 
do  not  so  much  as  allude  to  it.^  In  the  New 
Testament  the  reticence  is  equally  marked  and 
significant.  Christ  never  mentions  Adam's  Fall. 
Neither  does  Jolm,  nor  Jude,  nor  Peter.  Neither 
Peter  nor  Paul  refers  to  it  in  their  reported 
sermons.  Paul  once  gives  an  account  of  it  in 
one  of  his  Epistles  ;  but  that  in  a  parenthesis. 
The  whole  parenthesis  might  be  taken  out,  and 
the  argmnent  would  be  unaffected,  save  by  the 
loss  of  an  incidental  illustration.  In  two  or 
three  other  passages  he  refers  to  it  incidentally, 
as  in  the  phrase,  "  As  in  Adam  all  die,  even  so 
in  Christ  shall  all  be  made  alive."  But  he  never 
treats  it  as  a  fundamental  and  essential  fact. 
In  his  opening  chapter  of  the  Epistle  to   the 

1  The  only  Old  Testament  references  given  to  the  Fall  by 
the  Westminster  Confession  of  Faith,  apart  from  Gen.  iii., 
are  Ecclesiastes  vii.  29  ;  Psalm  li.  5  ;  Job  xiv.  4  ;  xv.  14  ; 
Jeremiah  xvii.  9.  Some  of  these  references  indicate  cer- 
tainly hereditary  depravity,  but  no  one  of  them,  unless  Eccle- 
siastes vii.  29,  even  remotely  suggests  a  Fall. 


210     THE  EVOLUTION  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 

Romans,  where  he  brings  his  terrible  indictment 
against  Jew  and  Gentile,  that  he  may  vshow  that 
all  the  world  is  guilty  before  God,  though  he 
gathers  both  from  observation  of  life  and  the  Old 
Testament  material  for  this  indictment,  he  makes 
no  reference  to  any  doctrine  of  a  Fall.  His  only 
references  to  it  are  in  arguments  addressed  to 
a  people  who  already  believed  in  it,  and  are 
made  for  the  purpose  of  showing  them  that 
grace  must  be  as  universal  as  the  race,  because 
sin  is  as  universal.  This  investigation  made  it 
first  of  all  clear  to  me  that,  whether  the  doctrine 
of  Adam's  Fall  were  true  or  not,  it  occupied  in 
the  theology  of  the  Bible  no  such  place  of  prom- 
inence as  it  has  occupied  since  in  the  scholastic 
systems  of  theology. 

Pursuing  this  inquiry  further,  I  began  to  ask 
myself  who  wrote  the  account  of  the  Fall  in  Gen- 
esis, and  how  in  literature  shoidd  this  account 
be  classified.  The  book  in  which  this  account  is 
found  is  quite  anonymous ;  there  is  no  word  in  it 
to  indicate  who  is  its  author.  An  ancient  tradi- 
tion attributes  it  to  Moses ;  modern  scholarship 
to  an  unknown  author  many  centm^ies  subsequent 
to  Moses.  If  we  accept  the  ancient  tradition 
and  attribute  the  book  to  the  most  ancient  date 
assigned  to  it  by  any  scholar,  and  then  accept 
the  chronology  given  in  the  margins  of  our  Eng- 
lish Bibles,  the  history  was  written  twenty-five 


THE  EVOLUTION  OF  THE  SOUL.        211 

centuries  after  the  fall  of  Adam  occurred. 
How  did  the  writer  obtain  his  knowledge  of 
the  event  ?  He  was  not  present,  nor  is  there  any 
reason  to  suppose  that  Adam  or  Eve  wrote  the 
narrative.  It  is  not,  then,  the  testimony  of  an 
eyewitness.  Did  God  reveal  the  facts  to  the 
historian  ?  The  historian  makes  no  claim  to 
have  received  any  such  revelation.  Presump- 
tively he  gathered  his  materials,  as  other  his- 
torians gather  theirs,  from  such  sources  as  were 
accessible  to  him,  —  legends,  myths,  traditions. 
This  presumption  is  streng-thened  by  the  fact 
that  such  materials  are  found  in  ancient  les'ends 
of  other  nations  and  in  the  Chaldean  tablets, 
whose  age  is  at  least  as  great  as  that  of  the 
Book  of  Genesis.  It  is  further  strengthened  by 
a  careful  scrutiny  of  the  Book  of  Genesis,  which 
has  enabled  the  scholars  to  separate  it,  hypothet- 
icaUy,  into  the  narratives  of  which  it  was  com- 
posed. It  receives  additional  confirmation  from 
the  nature  of  the  story  of  Eden,  which,  if  found 
an}n;\diere  save  in  Hebrew  literature,  woidd  at 
once  be  characterized  by  the  reader  as  poetic 
and  imaginative,  not  as  scientific  and  historical. 
Finally,  separating  the  Book  of  Genesis  into  its 
component  parts,  I  found  that  in  one  of  the  nar- 
ratives of  which  it  is  composed,  —  the  one  con- 
taining the  incomparable  account  of  the  crea- 
tion embodied   in  the  first  chapter  of  Genesis. 


212      THE  EVOLUTION  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 

—  there  was  nowhere,  directly  or  indirectly, 
any  reference  to  an  Eden  or  a  Fall.  It  thus  be- 
came very  clear  to  me  that  the  doctrine,  "  In 
Adam's  Fall,  we  sinned  all,"  which  was  the 
first  item  of  theology  taught  me  in  my  child- 
hood, is  not  the  fundamental  doctrine  which  I 
had  once  held  it  to  be  ;  that,  on  the  contrary, 
it  furnishes  a  very  unsubstantial  foundation  for 
the  elaborate  theological  superstructure  which 
has  been  reared  upon  it.  It  took  me  some  years 
of  study  and  reflection  to  reach  this  conclusion, 
and  it  will  not  be  strange,  if  the  reader,  accus- 
tomed to  think  that  the  doctrine  of  the  Fall  is 
woven  into  the  very  structure  of  the  Bible,  be- 
cause he  has  found  it  woven  into  the  very  struc- 
ture of  the  creeds,  is  slow  to  accept  at  my  hands 
this  contrary  conclusion  ;  but  I  must  here  as- 
sume it  as  established,  and  go  on  to  a  further 
investigation  of  the  question  what  light  philos- 
ophy and  science  throw  upon  the  origin  and 
nature  of  man,  and  upon  the  phenomena  of  sin 
and  remorse,  of  j^ardon  and  peace. 

What,  then,  is  man  ?  and  what  his  origin  and 
the  law  of  his  development  ? 

Comparative  physiology  and  anatomy  make  it 
clear  that  he  is  an  animal ;  sub-kingdom,  verte- 
brate ;  class,  mammal ;  order,  apes.  Whatever 
the  historic  origin  of  the  race,  embryology  makes 
it  clear  that  the  origin  of  each  individual  of  the 


THE  EVOLUTION  OF  THE  SOUL.        213 

race  is  animal,  and  that  lie  passes  in  the  earlier 
stage  of  his  existence  through  processes  of  devel- 
opment analogous  to,  if  not  precisely  the  same 
as,  those  through  which  other  animals  of  the 
same  general  class  and  order  pass.  Comparative 
philology  and  scientific  anthropology,  so  far  as 
we  can  trace  animal  life  back  to  prehistoric  peri- 
ods, lead  towards  the  conclusion  that  all  races  of 
men  not  only  have  a  conmion  origin,  but  one  in 
conmion  with  other  kindred  animals.  Finally  this 
conclusion  is  confirmed  by  the  general  results 
of  investigation  in  other  departments  of  life,  — 
material,  animal,  social,  political,  historical,  — 
which  have  led  substantially  all  scientific  stu- 
dents to  the  conclusion  that  all  life  proceeds  by 
a  "continuous  progressive  change,  according  to 
certain  laws,  and  by  means  of  resident  forces." 

The  objections  to  the  theory  that  man  himself 
has  been  developed  in  accordance  with  this  law 
from  a  lower  animal  order  are  four,  —  the  senti- 
mental, the  scientific,  the  Biblical,  and  the  re- 
ligious. 

The  sentimental  is  expressed  by  the  now  fa- 
miliar joke :  So,  you  think  your  grandfather 
was  an  ape?  But  to  have  ascended  from  an 
ape  is  not  more  ignominious  than  to  have  as- 
cended from  a  clay  man.  Whether  God  has 
put  a  divine  spirit  into  the  animal  man  is  a 
question  of  fundamental  religious  significance, 


214     THE  EVOLUTION  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 

and  we  will  consider  it  presently :  but  how  he 
prepared  this  animal  habitation  for  the  indwell- 
ing of  the  divine  spirit,  whether  by  an  instanta- 
neous creative  act  or  by  a  gradual  evolutionary 
process,  is  a  question  with  no  religious  signifi- 
cance whatever.  It  is  to  be  determined  wholly 
by  scientific  considerations. 

The  scientific  objection  is  that  there  are  gaps 
both  in  historical  and  in  physiological  continu- 
ity ;  that,  on  the  one  hand,  the  famous  "  miss- 
ing link  "  between  primitive  man  and  the  ape 
has  never  heen  found  by  geological  research ; 
and,  on  the  other,  that  to-day  the  difference  be- 
tween the  brain  caj^acity  of  man  and  that  of  the 
ape  constitutes  a  gap  which  the  evolutionary 
h3rpothesis  is  unable  to  bridge,  —  a  difference 
freely  and  frankly  admitted  by  the  greatest 
exponents  of  evolution.^      It  is  not   necessary 

^  Thus  Darwin,  in  The  Descent  of  Man  :  "We  have  seen  in 
the  last  chapter  that  man  hears  in  his  bodily  structure  clear 
traces  of  his  descent  from  some  lower  form ;  but  it  may  be 
urged  that,  as  man  differs  so  greatly  in  his  mental  power  from 
all  other  animals,  there  must  be  some  error  in  this  eonchision. 
No  doubt  the  difference  in  this  respect  is  enormous,  even  if  we 
compare  the  mind  of  one  of  the  lowest  savages,  who  has  no 
words  to  express  any  number  higher  than  four,  and  who  uses 
no  abstract  terms  for  the  commonest  objects  or  affections, 
with  that  of  the  most  highly  organized  ape.  The  difference 
would,  no  doubt,  still  remain  immense,  even  if  one  of  the 
higher  apes  had  been  improved  or  civilized  as  much  as  a  dog 
has   been  in   comparison  with  its  parent-form,  the   wolf   or 


THE  EVOLUTION  OF  THE  SOUL.        21o 

for  me  here  to  reproduce  the  scientific  answer 
to  this  objection,  for  this  is  not  a  scientific  trea- 
tise. It  must  suffice  to  say  that  he  who  is  not 
a  scientific  expert  must  be  content  to  await 
the  final  judgment  of  those  who  are  experts  on 
this  subject,  and  meanwhile  accept  tentatively 
their  conclusion ;  and  that  conclusion,  arrived 
at  with  substantial  unanimity  by  all  who  have 
investigated  this  subject,  is  that  the  scientific 
objections  to  the  doctrine  of  the  evolution  of 
man  from  a  lower  animal  order  are  insignificant 
in  comparison  with  the  e\adence  in  support  of 
that  hypothesis  and  the  objections  to  any  other. 
Thus  Le  Conte,  himself  a  Chi'istian  believer,  de- 
clares that  "  evolution,  therefore,  is  no  longer 
a  school  of  thought.  The  words  evolutionism 
and  evolutionist   ought  not   any  longer  to  be 

jackal.  The  Fuegians  rank  among  the  lowest  barbarians ; 
but  I  was  continually  struck  with  surprise  how  closely  the 
three  natives  on  board  H.  M.  S.  Beagle,  who  had  lived 
some  years  in  England,  and  could  talk  a  little  English,  resem- 
bled us  in  disposition,  and  in  most  of  our  mental  faculties." 
(Vol.  i.  133.)  Similarly  Huxley,  in  Evidences  as  to  Man's  Place 
in  Nature  :  "It  must  not  be  overlooked,  however,  that  there 
is  a  very  striking  difference  in  absolute  mass  and  weight  be- 
tween the  lowest  human  brain  and  that  of  the  highest  ape  — 
a  difference  which  is  all  the  more  remarkable  when  we  recol- 
lect that  a  full  grown  Gorilla  is  probably  pretty  nearly  twice 
as  heavy  as  a  Bosjes  man,  or  as  many  an  European  woman. 
It  may  be  doubted  whether  a  healthy  human  adult  brain  ever 
weighed  less  than  thirty  one  or  two  ounces,  or  that  the  heavi- 
est Gorilla  brain  has  exceeded  twenty  ounces  "  (p.  231). 


216     THE  EVOLUTION  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 

used,  any  more  tlian  gravitationism  and  gravi- 
tationist ;  for  tlie  law  of  evolution  is  as  certain 
as  the  law  of  gravitation.  Nay,  it  is  far  more 
certain."  In  view  of  such  a  statement  from 
such  a  source,  it  is  decorous  for  the  non-expert 
in  science  to  pass  by  without  discussion  the  sci- 
entific objection  to  the  doctrine. 

The  Biblical  objection  I  have  already  consid- 
ered ;  the  religious  or  spiritual  objection  de- 
serves some  further  consideration.  This  objec- 
tion is,  in  brief,  that  evolution  degrades  and 
dishonors  man ;  denies  the  divinity  in  him ; 
despoils  him  alike  of  his  divine  parentage,  his 
present  hopes  and  expectations,  and  his  inmiortal 
future  ;  reduces  him  from  a  child  of  God  to  a 
child  of  the  beast.  If  this  were  true,  it  would 
be  conclusive.  For  consciousness  is  the  final 
factor  in  the  determination  of  every  problem ; 
and  no  scientific  hypothesis  could  be  true  which 
set  itseK  against  the  testimony  of  consciousness 
bearing  witness  to  every  man  that  there  is  in 
him  a  divine  personality  and  an  illimitable 
destiny. 

Man  is  an  animal ;  but  he  is  more  than  an 
animal.  To  say  of  a  man,  "  He  is  a  perfect 
brute,"  is  not  to  pay  him  the  highest  possible 
compliment.  Nor  is  the  difference  between  him 
and  the  highest  animals  one  of  physical  pecu- 
liarities merely.     A  two-handed  ape  would  not 


THE  EVOLUTION  OF  THE  SOUL.        217 

be  a  man,  nor  a  four-footed  man  an  ape.  Each 
would  be  simply  a  freak  of  nature.  Nor  is  it 
that  one  possesses  only  instinct,  and  the  other 
reason.  Philosophy  has  long  since  abandoned 
the  endeavor  to  maintain  that  sharp  distinction 
between  reason  and  instinct  which  was  assumed 
by  the  older  philosophies.  Observation  has 
noted  many  illustrations  of  reasoning  power,  of 
a   limited  degree,  in  the  higher  animals.^ 

But  one  looks  in  vain  in  the  animal  race  for 
those  moral  and  spiritual  elements  which  are 
characteristic  of  men.  The  conscience  of  the 
dog  is  caught  from  his  master,  and  he  can  with 
equal  facility  be  taught  that  it  is  a  virtue  or  a 
vice  to  steal.  Reverence  for  invisible  qualities 
or  for  an  invisible  power  is  rarely,  if  ever,  want- 
ing in  even  the  lowest  types  of  manhood,  and 

^  The  books  are  full  of  well-authenticated  instances  of 
reasoning  in  dogs,  horses,  and  elephants.  One,  if  I  remember 
aright,  told  by  Philip  Gilbert  Hamerton,  may  serve  as  a  type. 
A  spaniel,  who  had  been  taught  that  he  must  not  go  upon  the 
garden  beds,  was  observed  attempting  to  drive  a  hen  and 
chickens  from  the  garden.  They  ran  among  the  beds,  while 
he  ran  round  the  beds,  from  path  to  path,  in  a  vainly  wild  at- 
tempt to  expel  them.  Suddenly  he  was  seen  to  drop  down  in 
the  path  with  his  nose  between  his  paws,  as  if  in  meditation  ; 
then  to  spring  suddenly  again  to  his  feet,  make  a  dart,  catch 
one  of  the  chickens  in  liis  mouth  and  start  for  the  garden  gate. 
The  mother  ran  clucking  after  him,  the  brood  followed  her. 
Once  outside  the  gate  he  dropped  the  cliieken  unharmed,  and 
trotted  up  to  the  house,  wagging  his  tail.  If  this  was  not  rea- 
son, what  was  it  ? 


218     THE  EVOLUTION  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 

never  discoverable  in  the  highest  type  of  the 
animals.  Worship  of  some  sort  is  substantially 
universal  with  mankind,  and  unknown  except 
among  mankind.  The  ants  have  their  slaves, 
the  bees  their  warehouses,  the  beavers  their  col- 
onies ;  but  nowhere  sign  of  temple,  priesthood, 
or  worship.  In  men  alone  is  there  the  possi- 
bility of  illimitable  development.  The  end  of 
education  in  the  best  trained  animal  is  soon 
reached.  Every  new  acquirement  of  man  adds 
to  his  moral  and  intellectual  power  and  in- 
creases his  moral  intelligence.  He  carries  in 
himseK  the  evidence  that  he  is  of  kin  to  the 
Infinite,  because  he  never  reaches  enduring  sat- 
isfaction in  what  he  has  secured,  but  ever  finds 
therein  a  new  incentive  to  seek  something  yet 
to  come.  Thus  the  animal  is,  while  man  never 
is,  but  always  is  becoming.  Whence  did  he 
receive  this  divine,  this  immortal,  this  midying, 
this  illimitable  life?  Is  the  author  of  the  first 
chapter  of  Genesis  correct  ?  Did  God  at  some 
moment  in  man's  upward  career,  by  an  instan- 
taneous act,  breathe  the  breath  of  a  divine  life 
into  man  ?  Or  are  we  to  accept  the  theory  of 
the  radical  evolutionists,  as  interpreted  by  Le 
Conte  and  Darwin,  and  believe  that  this  higher 
nature  of  man  was  developed  out  of  the  lower 
animal  instincts,  as  the  body  of  men  out  of  an 
earlier   and  inferior  form  ?     This   latter  hypo- 


THE  EVOLUTION  OF  THE  SOUL.        219 

thesis  must  be  regarded  as  yet  among  the  un- 
proved hypotheses  of  science  ;  with  more  at 
present,  it  seems  to  me,  against  than  for  it. 
But  the  question  is  one  of  science,  not  of  reli- 
gion, and  we  may  well  leave  it  for  science  to 
determine.  Religion  has  to  do  with  the  present 
and  the  future,  not  with  the  past,  —  save  as  it 
disentangles  us  from  the  past  for  the  future. 
It  knows  but  three  words,  Duty,  Destiny,  God. 
Religion  may  well  leave  science  to  determine 
the  question  where  man  came  from,  and  devote 
itseK  to  the  question  what  man  is  and  what  he 
can  become.  The  candid  reader,  desirous  only 
of  the  truth,  will  gladly  recognize  that  the  most 
skeptical  of  evolutionists  affirms  the  existence 
in  man  of  moral  and  spiritual  qualities  which 
differentiate  him  from  the  animal,  and  agrees 
with  the  orthodox  believer  that  man  possesses  a 
divine  nature  and  a  divine  destiny. 

Says  Mr.  Huxley :  "I  have  endeavored  to 
show  that  no  absolute  structural  line  of  demarca- 
tion, wider  than  that  between  the  animals  which 
immediately  succeed  us  in  the  scale,  can  be 
drawn  between  the  animal  world  and  ourselves  ; 
and  I  may  add  the  expression  of  my  belief  that 
the  attempt  to  draw  a  physical  distinction  is 
equally  futile,  and  that  even  the  highest  facul- 
ties of  feeling  and  of  intellect  begin  to  germinate 
in  lower  forms  of  hfe.     At  the  same  time,  no 


220     THE  EVOLUTION  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 

one  is  more  strongly  convinced  than  I  am  of  the 
vastness  of  the  gulf  between  civilized  man  and 
the  brutes ;  or  is  more  certain  that,  whether 
from  them  or  not,  he  is  assuredly  not  of  them. 
No  one  is  less  disposed  to  think  lightly  of  the 
present  dignity,  or  despairingly  of  the  future 
hopes,  of  the  only  consciously  intelligent  deni- 
zen of  this  world.  We  are  indeed  told  by  those 
who  assume  authority  in  these  matters  that  the 
two  sets  of  opinions  are  incompatible,  and  that 
the  belief  in  the  unity  of  origin  of  man  and 
brutes  involves  the  brutalization  and  degrada- 
tion of  the  former.  But  is  this  really  so? 
Could  not  a  sensible  child  confute,  by  obvious 
arsfuments,  the  shallow  rhetoricians  who  would 
force  this  conclusion  upon  us  ?  Is  it  indeed 
true  that  the  poet,  or  the  philosopher,  or  the 
artist,  whose  genius  is  the  glory  of  his  age,  is 
degraded  from  his  high  estate  by  the  undoubted 
historical  probability,  not  to  say  certainty,  that 
he  is  the  direct  descendant  of  some  naked  and 
bestial  savage,  whose  intelligence  was  just  suffi- 
cient to  make  him  a  little  more  cunning  than 
the  fox,  and  by  so  much  more  dangerous  than 
the  tiger  ?  Or  is  he  bound  to  howl  and  grovel 
on  all  fours  because  of  the  wholly  unquestion- 
able fact  that  he  was  once  an  Qgg^  which  no  or- 
dinary power  of  discrimination  could  distinguish 
from  that  of  a  dog  ?     Or  is  the  philanthropist 


THE  EVOLUTION  OF  THE  SOUL,        221 

or  the  saint  to  give  up  his  endeavBi's  to  lead  a 
noble  life  because  the  simplest  study  of  man's 
nature  reveals,  at  its  foundations,  all  the  selfish 
passions  and  fierce  appetites  of  the  merest  qua- 
druped ?  Is  mother-love  vile,  because  a  hen 
shows  it ;  or  fidelity  base,  because  dogs  possess 
it  ?  .  .  .  Our  reverence  for  the  nobility  of  man- 
hood will  not  be  lessened  by  the  knowledge  that 
man  is  in  substance  and  in  structure  one  with 
the  brutes ;  for  he  alone  possesses  the  marvel- 
ous endowment  of  intelligible  and  rational 
speech,  whereby,  in  the  secular  period  of  his  ex- 
istence, he  has  slowly  accumulated  and  organized 
the  experience  which  is  almost  wholly  lost  with 
the  cessation  of  every  individual  life  in  other 
animals ;  so  that  now  he  stands  raised  upon  it, 
as  on  a  mountain-top,  far  above  the  level  of 
his  humble  fellows,  and  transfigured  from  his 
grosser  nature  by  reflecting  here  and  there  a 
ray  from  the  infinite  source  of  truth."  ^ 

I  conclude,  then,  that  the  doctrine  that  man  is 
developed  from  a  lower  animal  order  is  not  in- 
consistent with  the  teaching  of  the  Bible,  if  the 
Bible  be  interpreted  as  itself  the  history  of  the 
development  of  religious  thought  and  life,  the 
life  of  God  in  the  soul  of  man,  as  I  have  en- 
deavored to  interpret  it  in  the  second  chapter  of 
this  volmne  ;  nor  is  it  inconsistent  with  the  spir- 

1  Huxley,  Evidence  as  to  Man^s  Place  in  Nature,  page  234* 


222     THE  EVOLUTION  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 

itual  consciousness  of  man,  —  his  consciousness 
of  a  divine  life  which  makes  him  more  than  an 
animal  and  links  him  to  God. 

Nor  does  it  militate  against  the  doctrine  of 
redemj)tion.  On  the  contrary,  it  gives  a  nobler 
and  grander  conception  of  redemption  than  was 
ever  afforded  by  the  doctrine  of  Adam's  fall. 
For  the  evolutionist  sees  in  redemjDtion,  not  a 
mere  restoration  of  man  to  a  former  state  of  in- 
nocence, but  a  process  of  divine  develoj)ment 
which,  beginning  with  man  just  emerging  from 
the  animal  condition,  carries  him  forward,  from 
innocence,  through  temptation,  fall,  and  sin,  into 
virtue  and  holiness.  To  make  this  clear,  I  ask 
the  reader,  laying  aside  doubtful  questionings 
as  to  the  prehistoric  history  and  development  of 
the  race,  to  trace  with  me  in  the  rest  of  this 
chapter  the  actual  progress  of  a  soul,  as  we  see 
it  in  life,  from  the  cradle  to  a  truly  heroic  and 
saintly  manhood. 

The  babe  is  innocent.  No  theology  can  make 
the  mother  really  believe  that  the  soul  which 
looks  trustingly  up  to  her  through  those  eloquent 
eyes  is  guilty,  "  under  the  wrath  and  condem- 
nation of  God."  But  the  innocence  of  the  babe 
is  the  innocence  of  ignorance.  It  is  guiltless  of 
wrong-doing  because  it  does  not  know  the  differ- 
ence between  right  and  wrong ;  innocent,  but 
lawless ;   not  yet  brought  under  law.      It  is  a 


THE  EVOLUTION  OF  THE  SOUL.        223 

little  animal.  It  knows  only  how  to  suckle  and 
to  cry.  It  is  without  power  of  self-control  by 
intellio'ent  consciousness  and  will,  because  Intel- 
ligent  consciousness  and  will  are  not  yet  evoked. 
It  is  greedy,  has  no  control  of  its  appetite, 
clamors  and  cries  for  its  mother's  breast,  does 
not  sip  daintily  and  delicately,  but  drinks  gTeed- 
ily,  like  every  other  animal.  It  is  predatory, 
by  nature  a  robber,  but  as  innocent  in  its  rob- 
bery as  the  magpie.  It  sees  another  baby  on 
the  floor,  enjoying  a  rattle,  crawls  across,  assails 
the  possessor  of  the  wealth,  seizes  it,  and  has  no 
consciousness  of  wi'ono'-doino*.  As  it  has  to  learn 
how  to  use  eyes  and  hands  and  feet,  so  it  has  to 
learn  how  to  use  reason,  consciousness,  reverence, 
love.  Little  by  little  it  learns  that  it  is  in  a 
world  of  law.  Fire  teaches  it  that  some  things 
cannot  be  touched  with  safety ;  sour  or  bitter 
tastes,  that  all  things  cannot  be  put  into  the 
mouth  with  comfort.  If  the  mother  be  wise,  the 
child  early  begins  to  learn,  by  mother's  prohibi- 
tions enforced  by  mother's  penalties,  that  there 
are  also  moral  laws.  It  begins  to  eat  the  fruit 
of  the  tree  of  knowledge  of  good  and  e\41.  Con- 
science is  awakened  ;  and  conscience  begins  to 
legislate  and  to  enforce  its  legislation.  Thus  by 
law  comes  a  knowledge  of  sin.  As  the  life  en- 
larges, the  experience  of  law  increases.  Brotliers 
and  sisters  enforce  unwritten  law.     The  child 


224      THE  EVOLUTION  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 

goes  to  school.  The  laws  of  the  school-fellows 
are  more  numerous  and  more  exacting  than  the 
laws  of  the  school-master.  Busmess  life  creates 
new  relations,  and  discovers  new  laws  of  busi- 
ness honor.  Citizenship  reveals  still  another 
code,  or,  to  speak  more  accurately,  other  appli- 
cations of  the  one  law  of  love.  Marriage  in- 
troduces the  young  man  to  another  life,  with 
obligations  of  chivalry,  husband-love  and  father- 
love,  protection  of  the  weak  and  the  defenseless. 
Thus  each  new  development  of  life  brings  with 
it  a  new  revelation  of  duty.  In  each  stage  of 
life  the  growing  man  comes  to  a  new  Mt.  Sinai. 
And  with  the  growing  consciousness  of  law,  en- 
forced by  penalties,  —  paternal,  governmental, 
social,  or  seK-inflicted,  —  comes  an  ever-growing 
sense  of  right  and  wrong ;  an  ever-growing  con- 
sciousness of  the  praiseworthiness  of  right  con- 
duct and  the  blameworthiness  of  wrong  conduct. 
The  little  animal  is  growing  up  into  manhood ; 
and  the  process  of  this  growth  is  a  process  in 
which,  by  successive  stages,  it  is  brought  into  the 
consciousness  of  a  moral  law,  and  so  into  the 
consciousness  of  a  higher  than  a  mere  animal 
nature. 

This  process  of  growth  by  law,  enforced  by 
penalties  which  are  inflicted  by  authority  with- 
out or  consciousness  within,  is  essential  to  moral 
character.      And   essential   to   this   process    of 


THE  EVOLUTION  OF  THE  SOUL.        225 

growth  is  temptation,  that  is,  the  conflict  be- 
tween the  higher  and  the  lower  nature.  Only 
through  temptation  comes  virtue,  that  is,  the 
subjection  of  the  lower  to  the  higher  nature ; 
and  incidental  to  temptation  is  sin,  that  is,  the 
subjection  of  the  higher  nature  to  the  lower. 
Without  this  growth  of  moral  consciousness 
—  this  emergence  from  the  innocence  of  the 
mere  animal  —  neither  sin  nor  virtue  is  possible. 
Gluttony  is  not  sin  in  a  hog ;  the  greater  glut- 
ton, the  better  the  breed.  Combativeness  is  not 
sin  in  a  bull-dog ;  the  bitterer  fighter,  the  bet- 
ter the  dog.  To  heap  up  wealth  for  another 
to  enjoy  after  they  are  dead  is  not  sin  in  the 
bees ;  the  more  they  gather  and  the  less  they 
give,  the  more  valuable  the  hive.  To  spend  life 
in  the  mere  pleasure  of  song  and  sunshine  is 
not  sin  in  the  bird ;  the  more  careless  the  song- 
ster, the  sweeter  is  his  companionship.  But  to 
man  there  is  a  higher  life  possible  than  to  feed 
with  the  hog,  fight  with  the  dog,  gather  with  the 
bee,  or  sing  with  the  birds  ;  it  is  as  he  comes  to 
a  knowledge  of  this  higher  nature  that  he  comes 
to  a  knowledge  of  good  and  evil ;  it  is  as  the 
higher  nature  becomes  victor  over  the  lower  that 
he  comes  to  a  life  of  true  virtue. 

It  is  conceivable  that  man  might  go  on  this 
pilgrimage  upward  and  onward  from  the  animal 
to  the  intellectual  and  moral  life  without  a  lapse, 


226     THE  EVOLUTION  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 

tliat  is,  without  that  degeneration  which,  as  we 
have  seen,^  the  scientists  recognize  as  inciden- 
tal to  evolution.  But  in  fact  man  never  thus 
progresses.  He  deliberately,  and  again  and 
again,  turns  his  back  upon  the  higher  life,  and 
goes  down  into  the  lower  life  from  which  he 
has  emerged.  The  self-indulgent  appetite,  the 
imregulated  passion,  the  blind  and  uninspired 
acquisitiveness,  the  surrender  to  selfish  pleasure- 
seeking,  is  a  recurrence  to  the  animal  nature 
from  which  the  voice  of  reason,  of  conscience, 
of  reverence,  —  that  is,  of  God,  —  has  sum- 
moned him.  To  call  this  recurrence  to  the 
animal  nature,  this  degeneration  from  the  spir- 
itual to  the  sensual,  a  "  step  in  advance  "is  to 
confound  the  obstacles  to  progress  with  the 
progress  which  they  hinder  and  delay.  In  every 
such  lapse  there  is  a  true  fall ;  and  we  so  recog- 
nize it  in  the  common  language  of  our  daily  life. 
If  a  theretofore  honest  and  honorable  man, 
yielding  to  some  great  temptation,  has  embez- 
zled or  defaidted,  we  speak  of  him  as  having 
fallen ;  and  a  *'  fallen  woman  "  is  the  common 
designation  of  one  whose  lapse  has  been  sudden 
from  a  position  of  the  highest  purity  to  one  of 
sensual  degradation.  Whether  Adam  fell  six 
thousand  years  ago,  by  eating  the  fruit  of  a  for- 
bidden tree,  is  a  debatable  question,  on  which 

^  See  chap.  i.  p.  10. 


THE  EVOLUTION  OF  THE  SOUL.        227 

really  little  depends.  Every  man  falls  when,  by 
yielding  to  the  enticements  of  his  lower,  animal 
nature,  he  descends  from  his  vantage-ground  of 
moral  consciousness  to  the  earthiness  out  of 
which  he  had  begun  to  emerge. 

Thus,  in  the  view  of  the  Christian  evolution- 
ist, sin  is  not  mere  unripeness  and  immaturity 
which  growth  and  sunshine  will  cure.  It  is  a 
deliberate  disobedience  of  the  divine  law,  into 
the  knowledge  of  which  the  soul  has  come  in  its 
emergence  from  the  animal  condition. 

And  fall  is  not  an  historic  act  of  disobedience 
by  the  parents  of  our  race  in  some  prehistoric 
age,  through  which  a  sinful  nature  has  descended 
or  been  imparted  to  all  their  descendants.  It 
is  the  conscious  and  deliberate  descent  of  the 
individual  soid  from  the  vantao'e  gfromid  of  a 
higher  life  to  the  life  of  the  animal  from  which 
he  had  been  uplifted. 

And  redemption  is  not  the  restoration  of  the 
race  to  that  state  of  innocence  from  which  it 
has  departed ;  it  is  the  entire  process  of  intel- 
lectual and  spiritual  development  in  which  man 
passes,  by  means  of  law  and  temptation,  through 
the  possibility  of  sin  and  fall,  from  the  condi- 
tion of  innocence,  that  is,  of  ignorance  of  law 
and  therefore  exemption  from  guilt,  into  the 
condition  of  virtue,  that  is,  into  a  conscious 
recognition  of  law,  and  the  subjugation  of  the 


228     THE  EVOLUTION  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 

animal  self  to  tlie  higher  nature  which  law  and 
temptation  have  evoked.^  Something  more  re- 
mains to  be  said  in  the  next  chapter  of  this 
process  of  redemption  from  the  point  of  view 
of  the  Christian  evolutionist. 

1  It  may  be  observed,  incidentally,  that  this  statement 
affords  an  interpretation  of  such  declarations  concerning  Christ 
as  that  he  "  was  in  all  points  tempted  like  as  we  are,  yet  with- 
out sin,"  that  he,  as  the  captain  of  our  salvation,  was  made 
"  perfect  through  suffering,"  and  that  he  "  increased  in  wisdom 
and  stature  and  in  favor  with  God  and  man."  These  and 
kindred  declarations  indicate  that  he  passed  from  the  inno- 
cence of  infancy  to  the  virtue  of  manhood,  through  the  path- 
way of  law  and  temptation,  exactly  as  all  other  men ;  with 
this  one  radical  difference,  that  as  far  as  he  came  to  a  know- 
ledge of  righteousness  he  fulfilled  righteousness ;  he  never 
disobeyed,  and  so  never  lapsed  or  fell. 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

THE   SECRET   OF   SPIRITUAL  EVOLUTION. 

Virtue,  the  conscious  recognition  of  a  moral 
law  and  the  conscious  and  deliberate  conformity 
to  it,  is  not  the  consummation  of  character. 
There  is  something  still  higher.  The  law  of  the 
spiritual  life  is  not  truly  the  law  of  the  soul 
until  wrought  into  the  nature  itseK.  Then  vir- 
tue  becomes  the  second  nature.  The  man  no 
longer  by  deliberate  acts  of  the  will  conforms 
to  a  standard  external  to  himself ;  he  is  not 
subject  to  law,  but  is  himself  an  embodied  law  ; 
becomes  a  law  unto  himself ;  does  whatever  he 
pleases  because  he  pleases  to  do  whatever  is 
right.  Thus,  in  that  spiritual  evolution  which 
constitutes  redemption,  man  passes  through  three 
stages:  in  the  first  he  is  lawless  but  innocent, 
and  in  his  ignorance  of  the  law  he  is  controlled 
by  his  animal  impulses  ;  ^  in  the  second  stage  he 
recognizes  the  higher  law  of  his  nascent  divine 
nature,  and  endeavors  to  conform  his  life  and 

^  He  is  by  nature  the  child  of  wrath  (Ephes.  ii.  3),  not 
of  God's  wrath,  but  of  hia  own  unregulated  appetites  and 
passions. 


230     THE  EVOLUTION  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 

character  to  it ;  in  the  third  stage  this  law  has 
become  the  law  of  his  being,  and  he  lives  in 
peace  and  liberty,  because  his  impulses  have 
themselves  become  spiritual  impulses.  The  first 
stage  is  innocence  ;  the  second  is  virtue  ;  the 
third  is  holiness. 

What  is  the  secret  power  by  which  this  revo- 
lution, or,  if  the  reader  prefers,  this  evolution, 
in  character  is  wrought  ?  The  process  is  growth  ; 
but  what  is  the  power  ? 

Life  gives  to  this  question  a  very  plain  an- 
swer. The  power  which  effects  transformations 
in  character  is  the  power  of  another  personality. 
This  is  the  power  recognized  in  all  systems  of 
education :  the  power  of  the  teacher,  inciting, 
inspiring,  moulding  the  pupil.  This  is  the 
power  of  the  true  orator,  who  moves  his  audi- 
ence less  by  what  he  says,  or  the  method  of  his 
saying  it,  than  by  what  he  is.  His  speech  is 
only  the  expression  of  himseK ;  and  it  is  not  the 
expression,  nor  the  thought  expressed,  but  the 
person.,  expressed  in  and  through  the  thought 
and  the  speech,  which  moves  and  shapes  the 
audience  to  the  orator's  will.  This  is  the  power 
of  the  musician ;  the  difference  between  the 
true  musician  and  the  mere  performer  being 
that  the  latter  has  only  technique,  while  the 
former  has  also  what  we  call  soul ;  music  is  but 
the  method  which  that  soul  takes  to  utter  itself. 


SECRET  OF  SPIRITUAL  EVOLUTION.    231 

This  makes  great  leaders  great.  The  presence 
of  the  "  Little  Corporal "  is  worth  a  battalion 
of  soldiers,  because  by  his  mere  presence  he  in- 
fuses his  own  invincible  courage  into  all  his 
army,  and  re-creates  it  by  his  military  spirit. 
This  is  the  secret  of  the  mother's  influence ; 
this  gives  value  to  her  training.  Instruction  in 
methods  cannot  make,  and  ignorance  of  methods 
cannot  mar.  If  the  mother  has  a  true  spirit  of 
motherly  devotion,  if  she  has  piety  and  truth  and 
courage  and  seK-sacrifice,  these  will  find  their 
expression,  and  the  child  wiU  be  formed  less  by 
what  his  mother  deliberately  designs  than  by 
what  in  her   inmost  being  she  is. 

The  secret  of  the  world's  moral  evolution  is 
such  a  personality,  brooding  all  manldnd ;  utter- 
ing itseK  through  all  history  in  "  broken  lights  " 
and  transitory  gleams ;  uttering  itself  through 
Hebrew  history  by  "  divers  portions  and  in 
divers  manners ; "  and  finally  and  perfectly  in- 
carnate in  the  Christ. 

Who,  then,  was  the  Christ  ?  And  what  is  his 
relation  to  the  religious  life,  —  the  life  of  God 
in  the  soul  of  men  ? 

Theological  controversies  about  the  Christ  are 
not  in  Christ's  spirit,  nor  do  they  tend  to  pro- 
mote reverence  for  his  person  or  his  life,  nor 
help  to  bring  any  soid  into  a  greater  love  or  a 
truer  following  of  him.     Into  these  controversies 


232      THE  EVOLUTION  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 

I  mean  never  to  enter.  Nor  have  I  any  psycho- 
logy of  his  unique  personality  to  offer  to  myself 
or  others,  nor  any  definition  of  his  relations  to 
the  Infinite  and  the  Eternal.  All  our  know- 
ledge of  truth  is  relative :  I  say  our  knowledge  of 
truth,  not  truth  itself.  What  matter  is,  no  man 
can  tell.  We  can  understand  only  its  relations 
to  ourselves.  What  spirit  is,  no  man  can  tell. 
We  can  understand  it  only  as  it  appears  in  and 
to  ourselves.  What  Jesus  Christ  is  to  the  infi- 
nite and  eternal  Father,  I  make  no  attempt  to 
discuss.  I  consider  only  what  he  is  to  the  indi- 
vidual soul,  and  what  he  has  been  to  the  human 
race.  He  is  himself  the  answer  to  the  two  great 
questions  of  our  spiritual  life  :  What  is  man  ? 
Who  is  God  ? 

These  are  the  profoundest  questions  that  ever 
addressed  themselves  to  the  human  soul.  What 
am  I,  and  what  is  my  destiny  ?  —  not  what  am 
I  now,  still  less  where  did  I  come  from,  but 
what  are  the  possibilities  within  me,  and  what 
the  life  that  beckons  me  on  to  an  illimitable 
life  ?  What  will  be  evolved  out  of  me  when  the 
work  of  growth  is  over  ?  —  that  is  the  real  ques- 
tion. If  the  Christian  church  had  spent  half 
the  time  in  studying  the  problem  how  it  could 
get  on,  which  it  has  spent  in  debating  the  ques- 
tion whether  it  came  from  Adam  or  not,  it  would 
have  made  much  further  progress  than  it  has. 


SECRET  OF  SPIRITUAL  EVOLUTION.    233 

Evolution  is  the  development  of  any  object 
towards  the  fulfillment  of  the  end  of  its  being ; 
and  by  a  force  resident  in  the  object  itself. 
What  I  may  become  depends  in  the  last  analy- 
sis upon  what  is  the  power  within  me  —  the 
power  which  by  my  free  acceptance  I  take,  and 
so  cause  to  be  within  me.  If  I  were  not  a  free 
moral  agent,  it  would  not  be  important  for  me 
to  ask  this  question ;  but  I  am  a  free  moral 
agent.  The  seed  does  not  ask.  Shall  I  become 
a  rose  or  a  pear  ?  because  the  seed  will  become 
whatever  the  soil  and  the  sunshine  and  its  origi- 
nal nature  make  it.  But  just  because  I  am  a 
free  moral  agent  I  must  work  with  God,  and 
what  I  become,  whether  rose  or  thistle,  depends 
—  I  say  it  reverently  —  as  tridy  on  myself  as 
on  him.  I  am  not  a  flute,  out  of  which  he  can 
draw  what  music  he  likes ;  I  am  not  plastic 
clay  on  the  revolving  table,  which  he  fashions 
into  what  he  likes  ;  I  am  not  a  movable  type 
which  he  puts  where  he  likes.  There  is  in  me  a 
power,  and  that  power  must  cooperate  with  him, 
or  there  will  be  no  music  in  my  life,  no  divine 
figure  wi'ought,  no  divine  truth  printed.  Now, 
if  I  am  to  cooperate  with  God,  if  he  and  I  are 
in  partnership,  if  I  must  toil  with  him  as  the 
teacher  toils  with  his  pupil  or  the  mother  with 
the  child,  I  must  know  who  and  what  I  am  to 
be.     I  must  be  able  to  ask  him,  What  sort  of  a 


234      THE  EVOLUTION  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 

utensil  are  you  purposing  to  make  ?  We  must 
work  together,  and  therefore  we  must  under- 
stand each  another. 

To  this  great  question  of  questions,  What  is 
man  ?  —  not  in  his  present  condition,  but  in  his 
future  possibility  —  Jesus  Clu'ist  furnishes  the 
answer.  He  does  not  furnish  the  answer  in  detail. 
Not  even  Christ  is  to  be  blindly  and  servilely  imi- 
tated. You  cannot  ask  him  what  are  the  pecu- 
liar duties  of  a  wife  to  a  husband,  or  of  a  hus- 
band to  a  wife,  for  he  never  was  married  ;  how 
you  are  to  treat  children,  for  he  never  had  chil- 
dren ;  how  you  are  to  vote  in  the  coming  elec- 
tion —  he  never  cast  a  vote  ;  how  you  shall  treat 
your  customers  and  clerks  —  he  was  no  mer- 
chant. It  almost  seems  as  if  the  details  of  life 
were  left  out  of  his  experiences  in  order  that  we 
might  not  follow  in  detail  any  life,  not  even 
his.  We  follow  Christ  as  every  ship  that 
crosses  the  ocean  from  Sj)ain  to  America  fol- 
lows Columbus,  marking  none  the  less  a  spe- 
cial pathway  for  itself,  —  each  going  in  its  own 
course,  yet  each  following  to  a  common  goal. 
He  came  to  give  life,  and  he  gave  it  abundantly, 
and  for  fullness  of  life  there  must  be  individual- 
ity. He  makes  us  live,  not  by  directing  us  to 
hew  ourselves  to  a  precise  and  particular  pattern, 
but  by  showing  every  man  how  he  may  be  his 
own  best  self.     None  the  less,  but  rather  far 


SECRET  OF  SPIRITUAL  EVOLUTION.  '  235 

more,  for  this  reason,  he  answered  the  question, 
What  is  man  ?  for  he  is  the  type  of  manhood. 

He  was  a  Jew,  and  yet  he  was  the  reverse  of 
a  Jew  —  unworldly,  catholic,  free.    He  was  born 
in  the  Orient,  but  he  was  not  characteristically 
Oriental,  —  no  dreamer  or  visionary,  he.     His 
religion   was   one   of   practical,   every-day   life. 
He  transcends  even  the  limitations  of  sex.  Man 
he  was,  yet  with  all  the  patience,  gentleness, 
and  tenderness  we  attribute  to  woman ;  but  who 
will  think  of  calling  him  that  poorest  and  weak- 
est  of   creatures,   a  womanly  man?    He   tran- 
scends all  ages,  and  is  the  ideal  of  to-day  as  he 
was  the  ideal  in  the  first  century.     He  fought 
no  battles,  yet  Havelock  reads  the  story  of  his 
life  and  is  quickened  in  courage.     He  nursed  no 
sick,  yet  the  nurses  in  a  thousand  hospitals  find 
the  inspiration  of  their  patient  toil  in  the  story 
of  his  patient  life.     He  was  no  merchant,  and 
yet  he  was  the  exemplar  of  our  Amos  Lawrence 
and   our   Cooper.     He  was   no   statesman,  yet 
Gladstone  is  his  follower.     All  men  find  alike 
in  this  one  unique  and  incomparable  figure  the 
one  worthy  of  their  following,  the  type  of  their 
manhood.      He  was   not  a  man,  but  the  man, 
filling   full  the   ideal  of  a  complete   manhood. 
Do  we  not  idealize  him  ?    No,  we  have  not  ideal- 
ized Jesus  Christ.     Jesus  Christ  is  engaged  in 
idealizing  us,  and  the  work  is  not  completed. 


236     THE  EVOLUTION  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 

As  he  answers  the  one  great  question  of  our 
lives,  What  is  man?  so,  he  answers  the  other 
great  question  of  our  lives,  Who  is  God  ?     The 
great  factor  in  human  reformation  is  divine  per- 
sonality.    But,  if  we  are  to  be  moulded  by  a 
person,  we  must  know  who  that  person  is.     Do 
we  want  to  know  about  God,  or  do  we  want 
personally  to  be  acquainted  with  God  ?   These 
are  two  different  questions.     In  the  one,  curi- 
osity asks  for  the  measurement  of  him ;  in  the 
other,  reverence  and  love  ask  for  personal  fel- 
lowship with  him.     Only  curiosity  can  be  satis- 
fied by  an  ambassador,   a  prophet,   a  teacher. 
Out  of  that  Roman  conception  of  theology  which 
made  God  an  eternal  Csesar  and  men  his  sub- 
jects grew  by  a  natural  process  the  conception  of 
Jesus   Christ  as   an  ambassador  from  God  to 
man.     But  if  God  is  not  a  king  whose  laws  we 
are  to  understand,  but  a  Father  whose  heart  I 
need  to  know,  then  no  revelation  of  teacher,  be 
he  human,  angelic,  or  superangelic,  will  suffice. 
It  is  the  Person  himself  I  need  to  know.     I  can- 
not love  by  proxy.     No  account,  philosophical 
and  skillful  though  it  may  be,  of  the  attributes 
of  God  suffices  as  a  foundation  for  love  toward 
God.     Tell  me  he  is  perfect  in  wisdom,  power, 
love,  mercy  ;  these  are  but  attributes  :  it  is  him- 
seK  I  want  to  know.     The  cry  of  the  human 
being  from  the  earliest  age  —  the  cry  of  Job, 


SECEET  OF  SPIRITUAL  EVOLUTION.    237 

"  Oh  that  I  knew  where  I  might  find  him  !  "  — 
is  still  the  cry  of  humanity.  All  history  is  the 
search  after  God.  All  science,  whether  the  sci- 
entist knows  it  or  not,  is  the  thinking  of  the 
thoughts  of  God  after  him,  the  trying  to  find 
him.  All  art  is  the  search  after  the  ideal  art  as 
it  exists  in  some  true,  divine  artist.  All  love  — 
of  lover,  wife,  husband,  child,  patriot  —  is  but 
the  fragmentary  and  imperfect  expression  of  the 
Infinite  and  Eternal  All-loving.  All  men  have 
at  the  hearts  of  them  more  or  less  of  this  hun- 
ger and  desire  to  know  the  Infinite  and  the 
Eternal.  To  this  hunger  Christ  is  the  answer, 
to  this  "  cry  of  the  human  "  he  is  the  response 
of  the  divine. 

Let  us  consider,  for  one  moment,  that  God  is 
training  children  to  be  free  like  himself,  and  by 
their  own  free  choice  to  become  partakers  of  his 
nature  ;  that  he  can  do  this  only  by  impressing 
his  own  personality  upon  them ;  and  that  he  can 
impress  that  personality  upon  them  only  by 
manifesting  himseK  to  them.  Are  there  not 
just  three  ways  in  which  he  can  do  this,  and 
only  three  ?  —  to  the  intellect,  to  the  sensibili- 
ties, and  to  the  will?  Must  he  not  either  by 
his  works  show  himself  to  the  thought  of  man, 
or  by  his  personal  presentation  in  life  show  him- 
self to  the  affections  of  man,  or  by  his  personal 
contact  with  man,  bringing  him  into  obedience 


238      THE  EVOLUTION  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 

to  himself,  show  himself  to  the  will  of  man? 
How  can  Arnold  of  Rugby  be  known  ?  Is  there 
any  way  but  these  three  ?  We  know  his  school, 
and  so  we  know  something  of  the  work  he  has 
done.  We  read  the  story  of  his  life,  and  we 
see  the  personality  of  the  man.  We  sit  at 
his  table  and  talk  with  him;  our  life  becomes 
intertwined  with  his ;  we  enter  into  sorrow  or 
joy  and  work  together  with  him.  Deism  gives 
us  intellectual  knowledge  of  God  —  we  know 
him  through  his  works.  Theism  gives  us  know- 
ledge of  him  through  his  will  entering  our  life 
and  our  attempt  to  follow  out  his  will  as  it 
is  interpreted  in  our  own  conscience.  The  faith 
of  the  ages  in  the  Christian  church  gives  us 
these  ;  but  it  gives  us  also  the  other  element,  a 
Person  manifesting  God  on  the  earth  —  God 
interpreted  in  terms  of  human  biography,  in 
order  that  we  may  see  and  know  and  love  him. 
Corresponding  with  these  three  ways  of  knowing 
God  are  the  three  great  historical  religions,  each 
of  which  serves  as  a  representative  of  the  three 
religions  which  are  now  clamoring  in  America 
for  our  suffrages  —  ethical  culture,  mysticism, 
and  historical  Christianity.  Ethical  culture, 
which  claims  to  know  that  there  is  a  right  and 
wrong,  but  can  discover  no  eternal  basis  for  it 
in  a  Personal  and  Eternal  Lawgiver,  has  pro- 
duced China.     Mysticism,  which  perceives  God 


SECBET  OF  SPIRITUAL  EVOLUTION.    239 

only  as  he  is  immanent  in  every  human  soul, 
but  discovers  no  objective  and  historical  mani- 
festation of  him,  has  produced  India.  And  his- 
torical Christianity,  with  its  triune  manifestation 
of  God,  in  nature,  in  human  consciousness,  and 
in  the  one  sacred  and  unique  Life,  has  produced 
Europe.     By  their  fruits  ye  shall  know  them. 

It  has  been  sometimes  said  in  orthodox  litera- 
ture that  Jesus  Christ  was  God  ;  but  that  state- 
ment in  the  New  Testament  is  always  accom- 
panied by  limitations  —  the  Word  of  God  made 
flesh,  God  tabernacling  among  us.  The  image  of 
God's  person,  The  brightness  of  God's  glory. 
Jesus  Christ  is,  in  other  words,  represented  as 
God  reducing  himseK  to  finite  proportions  and 
walking  in  finite  relations,  that  we  may  com- 
j)rehend  him  whom  otherwise  we  could  not  com- 
prehend. The  doctrine  of  the  church  is  explicit 
in  its  recognition  of  the  truth  expressed  by  Paul 
in  his  declaration  of  Christ's  "  self -beggary  "  in 
order  that  he  might  enter  into  humanity  and  fill 
it  with  the  riches  of  his  nature. 

Thus  to  these  two  questions  of  the  human 
soul  Jesus  Christ  is  the  answer.    What  is  man  ? 

—  He  is  the  ideal  of  manhood.     Who  is  God  ? 

—  What  Jesus  Christ  was,  in  the  limit  of  a  few 
years'  time  and  in  the  little  province  of  Pales- 
tine, that  is  the  Infinite  and  Eternal  Father  in 
his  dealings  with  the  universe. 


240      THE  EVOLUTION  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 

It  is  said  by  one  class  of  critics  that  the  doc- 
trine of  the  evolution  of  Christianity  necessarily 
involves  the  belief  that  Jesus  Christ  was  himself 
a  product  of  evolution ;  and  as  there  have  been 
over  eighteen  centuries  of  sj^iritual  evolution 
since  Christ's  time,  it  involves  a  presumption 
that  there  are  other  products  of  spiritual  evolu- 
tion superior  to  him,  or  at  least  that  there  will 
be  such  superior  products  in  the  future.  If 
the  evolutionist  denies  this,  if  he  claims  to  be- 
lieve in  the  divinity  of  Jesus  Christ,  or,  using 
the  very  inadequate  language  of  theological 
metaphysics,  in  his  supernatural  character,  then 
it  is  said  that  he  believes  in  evolution  "with 
an  if ;  "  that  he  is  not  a  consistent  evolutionist, 
but  makes  an  exception.  Now  if  either  of  these 
statements  were  true,  the  result  would  be  fatal 
to  the  philosophy  which  underlies  this  book.  If 
the  Christian  evolutionist  regards  Jesus  Christ 
as  a  product  of  spiritual  evolution,  he  gives  up 
Christianity,  not  merely  as  an  ideal  of  life,  but 
as  a  philosophy.  He  may  still  be  a  devout 
theist ;  but  he  is  in  no  philosophical  sense  a 
Christian.  If  on  the  other  hand  he  declares 
that  Jesus  Christ  is  an  exception  to  the  law  of 
evolution,  he  gives  up  evolution ;  for  God's  laws 
are  not  like  the  laws  of  Greek  grammar,  with 
exceptions.  When  science  seeks  to  formulate  a 
law  of  life,  it  succeeds  only  in  case  the  law  pro- 


SECRET  OF  SPIRITUAL  EVOLUTION.    241 

vides  for  all  the  phenomena  of  life.  If  some  of 
these  phenomena  are  inconsistent  with  the  sup- 
posed law,  the  supposed  law  does  not  exist.  A 
single  established  exception  to  the  law  of  gravi- 
tation would  require  a  re-statement  of  the  law 
in  such  terms  as  would  provide  for  that  excep- 
tion. 

Philosophically,  Jesus  Christ  can  be  regarded 
by  the  evolutionist  in  only  one  of  two  ways  :  as 
a  product  or  as  the  producer  of  evolution.  The 
careful  reader  will  perhaps  recall  a  statement  in 
the  introductory  chapter  of  this  volume  to  the 
effect  that  evolution  does  not  account  for  the 
origin,  but  only  for  the  processes  of  life.  Even 
the  agnostic  evolutionist  does  not  —  certainly 
most  agnostic  evolutionists  do  not  —  consider 
that  life  is  a  product  of  evolution.  Life  is  a 
cause ;  phenomena  are  the  product ;  evolution 
is  the  method.  The  theistic  evolutionist  does 
not  believe  that  God  is  a  product  of  evolution. 
God  is  the  cause  ;  phenomena  are  the  product ; 
evolution  is  the  method.  So,  the  Christian  evo- 
lutionist does  not  believe  that  Jesus  Christ  is  the 
product  of  evolution.  Jesus  Christ  is  the  cause  ; 
phenomena  are  the  product;  evolution  is  the 
method.  This  is  what  the  Christian  evolution- 
ist means  by  the  divinity  of  Jesus  Christ ;  life, 
God,  Christ,  are  not  synonymous  terms,  but  each 
of   them  expresses   the   finite    apprehension   of 


242      THE  EVOLUTION  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 

different  phases  of  the  Infinite.  Life  is  the  In- 
finite in  nature  as  the  scientist  sees  him,  evolv- 
ing out  material  phenomena  according  to  the 
law  of  growth  or  evolution;  God  is  the  Infi- 
nite as  the  devout  soul  sees  him,  evolving  out 
both  material  and  spiritual  phenomena  accord- 
ing to  the  laws  of  growth  or  evolution  ;  and 
Christ  is  the  Infinite  entering  into  human  life, 
and  taking  on  the  finite,  in  order  that  he  may 
achieve  the  end  of  all  evolution,  material  and 
spiritual,  in  bringing  men  to  know  and  be  at 
one  with  God.  Does  the  scientific  evolutionist 
believe  in  evolution  "  with  an  if,"  because  he 
believes  that  life  —  the  Infinite  and  Eternal 
Energy  —  is  the  cause,  not  the  product,  of  evo- 
lution ?  Does  the  theist  believe  in  evolution 
"  with  an  if  "  because  he  believes  that  God  is 
the  cause,  not  the  product,  of  evolution  ?  As 
little  does  the  Christian  evolutionist  believe  in 
evolution  "  with  an  if,"  because  he  believes  that 
Jesus  Christ  is  the  cause,  not  the  product,  of 
redemption.  Must  a  man  choose  whether  he 
will  believe  in  light,  or  in  the  sun  ?  As  little 
need  he  choose  whether  he  will  believe  in  a 
divine  spirit  which  pervades  all  life,  or  in  a 
divine  spirit  from  whom  comes  light  and  life 
into  the  world.  The  huntsman  with  his  burning- 
glass  concentrates  the  diffused  rays  of  the  sun 
upon  his  fagots  and  kindles  them  into  a  blaze. 


SECRET  OF  SPIRITUAL  EVOLUTION.    243 

In  Jesus  Christ,  the  diffused  spirit  of  God,  the 
Infinite  and  Eternal  Energy  from  whom  all 
things  proceed,  the  Power  not  ourselves  that 
makes  for  righteousness,  is  concentrated  in  a 
single  human  life,  and  kindles  humanity  into  a 
blaze  of  love,  im23arting  to  it  his  o\vn  glory. 

If  my  reader  will  remember  the  perfectly 
sim^^le  fact  that  philosophy  must  in  its  study 
always  recognize  three  factors,  a  cause,  a  pro- 
cess, and  a  product,  that  evolution  has  to  do 
only  with  the  process,  and  that  the  Christian 
evolutionist  regards  Jesus  Christ  as  the  cause, 
evolution  as  the  process,  and  Christianity  as  the 
product,  however  much  he  may  disagTee  with 
my  interpretation  of  Christianity,  he  will  at 
least  be  saved  from  a  radical  misapprehension 
of  it. 

To  sum  up,  then,  these  two  chapters  in  a  par- 
agraph :  God  is  in  his  world  of  matter  and  his 
world  of  men.  He  is  the  Word,  —  "  The  Word 
was  with  God  and  the  Word  was  God."  That 
is,  from  eternity  God  has  been  a  self -revealing 
Person.  He  has  been  disclosing  himself.  He 
has  not  been  like  the  Egyptian  Sphinx  ;  he  has 
from  eternity  expressed  himself  in  matter  by 
creation,  and  in  human  histoiy  by  the  utter- 
ances of  his  prophets  and  apostles,  and  in  Jesus 
Christ  in  propria  persona  has  entered  human 
life,  in  order  that  he  might  show  us  who  he  is, 


244      THE  EVOLUTION  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 

that  so  we  might  have  One  round  whom  we 
might  put  our  arms,  before  whom  we  might 
bow  in  reverence,  to  whom  we  might  give  our 
highest,  supremest,  tenderest  love. 


CHAPTER  IX. 

CONCLUSION :    THE  CONSUMMATION  OF  SPIRITUAL 
EVOLUTION. 

In  this  chapter  I  propose  rapidly  to  survey 
the  ground  ah^eady  traversed,  re-state  the  con- 
ckisions  reached,  and  finally  re-define,  in  the 
language  of  evolutionary  theology,  some  theolo- 
gical terms  in  common  use. 

God  is  in  his  world.  Nature  is  not  a  ma- 
chine which  a  mechanic  has  made,  wound  up, 
and  set  going,  and  with  which  he  must  from 
time  to  time  interfere,  as  a  watchmaker  inter- 
feres to  regulate  a  somewhat  imperfect  time- 
keeper. Nature  is  the  expression  of  God's 
thought,  the  outward  utterance  of  himself.  He 
dwells  in  it  and  works  through  it.  Amid  aU 
the  mysteries  by  which  we  are  surrounded,  says 
Herbert  Spencer,  nothing  is  more  certain  than 
this,  that  we  are  ever  in  the  presence  of  an  Infi- 
nite and  Eternal  Energy  from  which  all  things 
proceed.  This  Infinite  and  Eternal  Energy 
from  which  all  things  proceed  is  an  intelligent 
Energy.  It  is  an  Energy  that  thinks,  and  cre- 
ation is  the  expression  of  the  thought  of  this 


246     THE  EVOLUTION  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 

Infinite  and  Eternal  Energy.  Much  of  the  old 
teleological  argument,  as  it  is  called,  may  per- 
haps be  set  aside  by  modern  research,  and  I  be- 
lieve that  the  notion  of  secondary  causes  pro- 
ceeding from  a  great  First  Cause  must  be  set 
aside.  But  in  the  world  there  is  one  underlying 
Cause  which  is  the  source  and  fountain  of  all 
power ;  and  the  fact  that  we  investigate  natural 
phenomena,  and  endeavor  to  see  their  relations 
to  one  another,  shows  that  there  are  relations 
in  those  phenomena  which  the  intellect  can  com- 
prehend, and  which  therefore  are  themselves  in- 
tellectual. Science  is  not  the  mere  putting  of 
phenomena  in  pigeon-holes  and  setting  labels 
upon  them.  Science  perceives  in  natiu*e  a  real 
thoughtfulness,  and  follows  along  the  path  which 
preexisting  thought  has  marked  out  for  it.  Even 
Haeckel,  in  the  very  chapter  in  which  he  under- 
takes to  show  that  the  notion  of  a  divine  Cre- 
ator behind  the  creation  should  be  abandoned, 
repeats  on  ahnost  every  page  the  language  of 
intellectualism,  showing  the  "  jiurpose  "  of  this, 
the  "  object  "  of  that,  and  the  "  design  "  of  the 
other.  He  cannot  speak  of  the  phenomena  of 
the  universe,  even  in  the  attempt  to  dethrone 
God  from  it,  without  in  his  very  words  show- 
ing that  there  is  a  Designer,  a  Thinker,  and  a 
Purposer. 

This  God,  whose  existence  is  demonstrated  by 


CONCLUSION.  247 

the  unity  in  the  material  universe,  is  no  less 
demonstrated  by  the  unity  of  the  immaterial 
universe.  There  is  as  tridy  a  science  of  history 
and  sociology  as  there  is  a  science  of  astronomy 
and  of  biology ;  and  as  nature,  so  humanit}^  has 
a  unity  and  a  continuity.  Mankind  are  not 
mere  segregated  atoms  of  sand  on  the  beach  — 
there  is  a  moral  unity  in  the  human  race.  All 
history  recognizes  this,  and  evolution  brings  it 
out  more  clearly  than  it  was  brought  out  before. 
History  as  a  mere  record  of  the  separate  acts 
of  individuals  has  passed  away,  and  now  the 
true  historian,  following  the  example  of  those 
who  in  the  last  century  first  began  to  write 
modern  history,  sees  that  there  is  a  moral  devel- 
opment ;  that  events  lead  on  to  other  events  in 
the  realm  of  spirit  as  in  the  realm  of  matter ; 
that  there  is  a  God  in  history,  as  there  is  a  God 
in  nature  —  a  God  who  is  working  out  some 
great  design  among  men,  as  there  is  a  God  who 
is  working  out  great  designs  through  all  mate- 
rial and  mechanical  phenomena. 

But  God  can  express  himself  in  terms  of 
moral  life  —  can  utter  himself  in  terms  of  right- 
eousness —  only  through  beings  that  have  the 
power  of  righteousness,  and  therefore  through 
beings  that  are  free  to  be  unrighteous.  A  man 
forced  to  be  virtuous  is  not  virtuous  at  all,  for 
freedom  to  choose  the  evil  is  essential  to  consti- 


248     THE  EVOLUTION  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 

tute  tlie  good.  Thus  while  in  nature  God  may 
work  out  the  mechanical  evidences  of  his  skill 
and  love  of  beauty,  he  can  work  out  the  expres- 
sions of  his  truth,  purity,  and  holiness  only  in 
a  world  which  has  in  it  a  possibility  of  the  re- 
verse. 

In  such  a  world  as  this  he  is  expressing 
himself,  and  has  expressed  himself  from  the 
beginning.  All  men  are  his  children,  and  all 
nations  are  his.  But  as  some  men  show  greater 
susceptibility  to  his  presence  than  others,  so 
in  some  nations  he  is  more  manifested  than  in 
others ;  and  as  he  expresses  himself  more  truly 
in  some  lives  than  in  others,  so  in  some  nations 
and  races  he  expresses  himself  more  truly  than 
in  other  nations  and  races.  If  you  ask  why  one 
man  seems  to  be  more  susceptible  to  divine  in- 
fluence than  another,  I  answer  that  I  do  not 
know.  I  take  life  as  I  find  it,  and  recognize 
the  fact  without  offering  any  explanation.  As 
I  do  not  know  why  the  acorn  produces  an  oak, 
or  why  the  apple-seed  produces  an  apple-tree, 
so  I  do  not  know  why  God  in  one  life  seems 
to  bring  forth  results  which  in  another  life  he 
does  not  bring  forth.  But  such  is  the  fact ; 
and  our  business  in  a  scientific  study  of  human 
life  is  to  accept  the  fact. 

Among  all  the  nations  of  antiquity,  the  one 
nation  which   displayed  a  peculiar   genius   for 


CONCLUSION.  249 

what  men  call  religion  —  that  is,  a  peculiar 
genius  for  the  spiritual  and  invisible  —  was  the 
Hebrew  race.  As  compared  with  modern  races, 
the  Hebrews  often  seem  dull  and  obtuse ;  but 
as  compared  with  the  nations  about  them,  they 
were  a  nation  fitted  for  the  beginning  of  a  mani- 
festation of  righteousness.  For  fifteen  centuries 
of  history,  God  was  dealing  with  this  nation  as 
with  all  nations ;  but  in  this  nation  the  fruit  of 
his  dealing  was  manifest  as  in  none  other,  and 
in  men  of  special  spiritual  genius  of  this  nation 
as  in  no  other  men.  During  these  fifteen  cen- 
turies of  his  dealing  with  this  people,  he  called 
forth  their  genius,  and  out  of  the  writings  of 
their  prophets  he  secured,  by  what  you  may  call 
natural  selection  or  divine  providence,  according 
as  you  are  scientifically  or  religiously  inclined, 
a  permanent  book,  the  Bible.  Thus  the  Bible 
is  the  expression  of  God  in  human  thought  — 
God  speaking  to  men  and  through  men  —  God 
speaking  through  the  selected  writings  of  the 
selected  prophets  of  a  selected  people.  When 
the  ripeness  of  time  had  come,  this  process  of 
speaking  to  men  issued  in  the  Incarnation  — 
the  speaking  of  God  in  man.  Up  to  the  first 
century,  the  Word  had  been  a  word  sjDoken  to 
humanity.  In  the  birth  of  Jesus  Christ,  the 
Word  itself  became  incarnate  :  God,  who  had 
expressed  himself  through  men,  now  expressed 


250      THE  EVOLUTION  OF  CHRISTIANITY, 

himself  in  a  human  life.  He  entered  into  hu- 
manity, and  in  Christ  Jesus  became  a  sharer  of 
human  nature.  The  Word  tabernacled  among 
men  became  subject  to  human  conditions,  shared 
the  weaknesses,  the  wants,  the  ignorance  of 
humanity. 

For  what  purpose  ?  Simply  to  manifest  him- 
self to  men  ?  Such  a  manifestation,  if  it  led 
to  nothing,  would  give  no  cheer,  —  would  bring 
no  good  tidings.  If  God  came  into  the  world 
simply  to  tell  us  what  God  is  and  what  is  his 
ideal  for  humanity,  the  gospel  would  be  the  sad- 
dest message  that  could  be  conceived  as  deliv- 
ered to  the  human  race.  As  an  athlete  coming 
to  a  hospital  merely  to  exhibit  to  hopeless  in- 
valids the  glory  of  a  vigorous  manhood  would 
add  to  their  despair,  so  a  perfectly  righteous 
One  coming  into  a  world  simply  to  show  sin- 
ners how  glorious  is  righteousness  would  enhance 
their  gloom.  Christ  conies,  not  merely  to  show 
di\dnity  to  us,  but  to  evolve  the  latent  divinity 
which  he  has  implanted  in  us.  God  has  entered 
into  the  one  man  Christ  Jesus,  in  order  that 
through  him  he  may  enter  into  all  men.  Christ 
is  a  door,  through  which  the  divine  enters  into 
humanity,  through  which  man  enters  into  the 
divine.  "  Whom  he  did  foreknow  he  also  did 
predestinate  to  be  conformed  to  the  image  of 
his  Son,  that  he  might  be  the  first-born  among 
many  brethren." 


CONCLUSION.  251 

Christ  is  not  a  man  like  other  men,  but  man- 
kind is  to  become  like  Christ.  The  tulip  is 
not  like  the  bulb,  but  the  bulb  is  to  become  like 
the  tulip.  This  is  Christ's  own  declaration  of 
the  object  of  his  mission.  "I  have  come,"  he 
says,  "  that  you  might  have  life."  How  much  ? 
Life  more  abundantly.  What  kind  of  life  ? 
Eternal  life.  The  life  of  God  in  the  soul  of 
man.  The  life  that  was  in  Christ.  Life  such 
that,  when  humanity  is  filled  with  it,  his  prayer 
will  be  fulfilled,  "  that  they  all  may  be  one  as 
thou.  Father,  art  in  me  and  I  in  thee,  that  they 
also  may  be  one  in  us." 

Christ,  then,  who  is  the  secret  of  spiritual  evo- 
lution, is  also  the  type  and  pattern  of  that  which 
will  be  wrought  in  universal  humanity  when 
spiritual  evolution  is  consummated.  The  incar- 
nation is  not  an  isolated  episode,  —  it  is  the  be- 
ginning of  a  perpetual  work.  God  is  still  Em- 
manuel, "  God  with  us."  God  has  not  passed 
through  human  life,  entering  at  one  door  and 
going  out  at  the  other ;  he  has  come  into  human 
life,  and  is  gradually  filling  it  with  himself. 
Thus  the  Christ  is  a  perpetual  presence,  an  ever- 
living  Christ.  He  is  really  in  his  church ;  his 
church  is  really  his  body;  he  is  incarnating 
himself  in  humanity ;  and  thus  incarnate  is  still 
growing  in  wisdom  and  in  favor  with  God  and 
man.     God    is   still  a  Word,  still  a    speaking 


262      THE  EVOLUTION  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 

God,  still  manifesting  himself.  He  is  entering 
into  liuman  consciousness,  and  the  divine  and 
human  are  inextricably  intermingled  in  one 
divine-human  consciousness.  The  end  of  evo- 
lution is  a  glorified  humanity,  a  humanity  in 
which  God  dwells.  His  tabernacle  shall  be 
with  men.  They  shall  be  his  children,  and  he 
shall  be  their  God.  This  truth  is  written  all 
through  the  New  Testament ;  it  shines  on  almost 
every  page.     Listen  to  Christ  himself. 

You  shall  be  my  disciples,  my  followers ; 
shall  take  up  my  cross  ;  shall  do  the  works  that 
I  have  done  and  even  greater  works  than  I  have 
done.  I  send  you  into  the  world  as  the  Father 
has  sent  me  into  the  world :  to  teach  as  I  have 
taught,  to  manifest  God  as  I  have  manifested 
him ;  to  suffer  vicariously  for  others'  sins,  as  I 
have  suffered.  The  secret  of  my  life  shall  be 
yours.  Ye  shall  abide  in  me,  and  I  will  abide 
in  you.  You  shall  be  as  a  branch  engTafted  on 
me,  drawing  as  from  my  veins  the  life  that  ani- 
mates me.  You  shall  share  my  glory,  the 
glory  that  I  had  with  the  Father  before  the 
world  was  ;  shall  be  with  me  where  I  am  ;  shall 
be  one  with  the  Father  as  I  am  one  with  the 
Father.  Paul  takes  up  the  same  theme  and 
writes  it  out  with  endless  variation.  Yet  it  is 
always  the  same  theme.  Righteousness  in  man 
is  the  righteousness  of  GoH,  God's^^wn  right- 


CONCLUSION.  263 

eousness,  coming  out  of  God's  heart  into  human 
hearts.  We  are  partakers  of  the  divine  nature  ; 
heirs  of  God  —  inheritors  of  his  nature  ;  joint 
heirs  with  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ ;  —  having  in 
us  the  same  spirit  that  was  in  him  ;  holy  as  he 
was  holy  ;  pure  as  he  was  pure.  He  is  dead  :  we 
are  to  die  with  him.  He  has  risen  :  we  are  to 
rise  with  him.  Already  we  sit  in  the  heavenly 
places  with  him ;  reflecting  his  glory,  we  are 
changed  from  glory  to  glory  into  the  same  im- 
age. There  is  scarce  any  title  of  dignity  given 
to  Jesus  Christ  in  the  New  Testament  which  is 
not  in  a  modified  form  given  by  the  sacred  writ- 
ers to  his  followers.  He  is  the  Light  of  the 
world,  —  we  are  lights  in  the  world.  He  is  the 
only  begotten  Son  of  God,  —  we  are  sons  of 
God.  He  is  the  great  High  Priest,  King  of 
kings  and  Lord  of  lords,  —  we  are  kings  and 
priests  unto  God.  He  is  the  eternal  sacrifice, 
—  we  are  bidden  to  present  our  bodies  living 
sacrifices.  God  tabernacled  in  him,  and  tab- 
ernacles in  us.  In  him  dwelt  the  fullness  of 
the  Godhead  bodily,  and  we  are  bidden  to  pray 
that,  being  rooted  and  grounded  in  love,  we 
also  may  be  filled  with  all  the  fullness  of  God. 
In  brief,  the  Bible,  starting  with  the  declaration 
that  God  made  man  in  his  own  image,  going  on 
to  interpret  God  in  the  terms  of  human  expe- 
rience by  the  mouth  of  poet  and  prophet,  and 


254    THE  EVOLUTION  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 

finally  revealing  in  tlie  person  of  Jesus  Christ 
an  incarnate  God  dwelling  in  a  perfect  man, 
emphasizes  the  fundamental  truth  that  in  their 
essential  natures  God  and  man  are  the  same, 
and  points  forward  to  the  time  when  man,  re- 
deemed from  the  earthy  and  the  animal  debris 
which  still  clings  to  him,  shall  be  presented 
faultless,  because  filled  with  the  divine  indwell- 
ing. Now  are  we  sons  of  God,  but  sons  at 
school  and  in  process  of  education ;  then,  when 
we  see  him,  not  adumbrated  and  incognito  as 
we  see  him  now,  but  in  all  the  regal  splendor  of 
his  character,  and  with  all  the  justice  and  the 
purity  and  the  love  which  constitute  his  divine 
glory,  we  shall  be  like  him,  and  God  will  be  in 
us,  as  in  Christ,  the  All  in  all. 

History  is  but  the  record  of  the  process  of 
this  evolution  of  the  divinity  out  of  humanity. 
It  is  a  continuous  progressive  change,  from  lower 
to  higher,  and  from  simpler  to  more  complex. 
It  is  according  to  certain  definite  laws  of  the 
moral  and  spiritual  life  :  and  it  is  by  means  of 
resident  forces,  or  rather  a  resident  force, — 
the  force  of  God  in  the  individual  soul ;  the  force 
of  Christ,  —  God  manifest  in  the  flesh,  —  in 
human  society.  Thus  the  church.  Christian  so- 
ciety, the  individual,  are  all  a  strange  intermix- 
ture of  paganism  and  Christianity,  in  which 
Christianity  is  steadily,  but  surely,  gaining  the 


CONCLUSION.  255 

victory  over  paganism.  The  church  is  partly 
Roman  imperialism  and  partly  Christian  bro- 
therhood ;  but  brotherhood  is  steadily  displacing 
imperialism.  Society  is  partly  pagan  selfish- 
ness and  partly  Christian  love  ;  but  Christian 
love  is  steadily  displacing  pagan  selfishness. 
Theology  is  partly  Christian  truth  and  partly 
pagan  superstition  ;  but  truth  is  steadily  dis- 
placing superstition.  The  individual  man  is 
partly  the  animal  from  which  he  has  come,  and 
partly  the  God  who  is  coming  into  him  ;  but 
God  is  steadily  displacing  the  animal.  So, 
whether  we  look  at  the  individual,  the  church, 
or  society,  we  see  the  process  of  that  spiritual 
evolution  by  which,  through  Jesus  Christ,  men 
are  coming  first  to  know  God,  and  then  to  dwell 
with  him.  Under  the  inspirational  power  of 
the  divine  spirit  their  spiritual  nature  is  grow- 
ing stronger  and  their  animal  and  earthly  na- 
ture more  subjugated  ;  and  when  the  end  has 
come,  they  wall  be  heirs  with  God  and  joint  heirs 
with  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ. 

In  bringing  this  book  to  a  close,  I  cannot 
better  sum  up  the  conclusions  to  which  I  have 
endeavored  to  conduct  the  reader,  than  by  re- 
defining some  common  theological  phrases  in 
terms  of  evolutionary  belief. 

Christianity  is  an  evolution,  a  growing  reve- 


266    THE  EVOLUTION  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 

lation  of  God  though  prophets  in  the  Old  Tes- 
tament, incarnate  in  Jesus  Christ  in  the  New 
Testament ;  a  revelation  which  is  itseK  the  se- 
cret and  the  power  of  a  growing  spiritual  life 
in  man,  beginning  in  the  early  dawn  of  human 
history,  when  man  first  came  to  moral  conscious- 
ness, and  to  be  consummated  no  one  can  tell 
when  or  how. 

Inspiration  is  the  breathing  of  God  upon  the 
soul  of  man ;  it  is  as  universal  as  the  race,  but 
reaches  its  highest  manifestation  in  the  selected 
prophets  of  the  Hebrew  people. 

Kevelation  is  unveiling,  but  the  veil  is  on  the 
face  of  man,  and  not  on  the  face  of  God  ;  and  the 
revelation  is  therefore  a  progressive  revelation, 
man  growing  in  the  knowledge  of  God  as  the 
veil  of  his  ignorance  and  degradation  is  taken 
away. 

Incarnation  is  the  indwelling  of  God  in  a 
unique  man,  in  order  that  all  men  may  come  to 
be  at  one  with  God. 

Atonement  is  the  bringing  of  man  and  God 
together  ;  uniting  them,  not  as  the  river  is  united 
with  the  sea,  losing  its  personality  therein,  but 
as  the  child  is  united  with  the  father  or  the  wife 
with  the  husband,  the  personality  and  individ- 
uality of  man  strengthened  and  increased  by 
the  union. 


:/ 


CONCLUSION.  257 

Sacrifice  is  not  penalty  borne  by  one  person 
in  order  that   another  person  may  be  relieved 
from  the  wrath  of  a  third  person ;  sacrifice  is  \ 
the  sorrow  which  love  feels  for  the  loved  one, 
and  the  shame  which  love  endures  with  him  be 
cause  of  his  sin. 

Repentance  is  the  sorrow  and  the  shame  which 
the  sinner  feels  for  liis  own  wrong-doing ;  when 
man  is  thus  ashamed  for  himself,  and  his  hea- 
venly Father  enters  into  that  shame,  as  he  has 
done  from  the  foundation  of  the  world,  —  a 
truth  of  God  revealed  by  the  Passion  of  the 
Word  of  God,  —  then,  in  this  beginning  of  the 
commingling  of  the  sorrow  of  the  two  is  the 
beginning  of  atonement,  the  end  of  which  is 
not  until  the  penitent  thinks  as  God  thinks, 
feels  as  God  feels,  wills  as  God  wills. 

Redemption  is  not  the  restoration  of  man  to 
a  state  of  innocence  from  which  he  has  fallen ; 
it  is  the  progTCSS  of  spiritual  evolution,  by 
which,  out  of  such  clay  as  we  are  made  of,  God 
is  creating  a  humanity  that  will  be  glorious  at 
the  last,  in  and  with  the  glory  manifested  in 
Jesus  Christ. 

Finally:  religion  is  not  a  creed,  long  or 
short,  nor  a  ceremonial,  complex  or  simple,  nor 
a  life  more  or  less  perfectly  conformed  to  an 
external  law ;  it  is  the  life  of  God  in  the  soul 


258      THE  EVOLUTION  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 

of  man,  re-creating  the  individual ;  through  the 
individual  constituting  a  church ;  and  by  the 
church  transforming  human  society  into  a  king- 
dom of  God. 


american  iSeligious!  leaser^. 

A  Series  of  Biographies  of  Men  who  have  had  great 

influence  on   Religious  Thought  and 

Life  in  the  United  States. 


JONATHAN  EDWARDS.     By  Professor   A.  V.  G. 

Allen,  author  of  "  The  Continuity  of  Christian  Thought." 

DR.  MUHLENBERG.  By  Rev.  William  Wilberforce 
Newton. 

WILBUR  FISK.  By  Professor  George  Prentice,  of 
Wesleyan  University. 

FRANCIS  WAYLAND.  By  Professor  J.  O.  Mur- 
ray, of  Princeton. 

CHARLES  G.  FINNEY.  By  Professor  G.  Frederick 
Wright. 

MARK  HOPKINS.  By  President  Franklin  Carter, 
of  Williams  College. 

HENRY  BOYNTON  SMITH.  By  Professor  L.  F. 
Stearns. 

In  Preparation. 

THEODORE  PARKER.  By  John  Fiske,  author  of 
"  The  Idea  of   God,"  "  Outlines  of  Cosmic  Philosophy,"  etc. 

This  series  includes  biographies  of  eminent  men 
who  represent  the  theology  and  methods  of  the  va- 
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and  memorable  way  several  great  figures  in  American 
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and  thought  of  the  Nation. 

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4  Park  St.,  Boston;  ii  East  i7rH  St.,  New  York. 


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Edited  by  Horace  E.  Scudder. 
VIRGINIA.   A  History  of  the  People.   ByJohnEsten 

Cooke,  author  of  "  Life  of  Stonewall  Jackson,"  etc. 

OREGON.   The  Struggle  for  Possession.    By  William 

Barrows,  D.  D. 

MARYLAND.  The  History  of  a  Palatinate.  By  Wil- 
liam Hand  Browne,  Associate  of  Johns  Hopkins  University. 

KENTUCKY.  A  Pioneer  Commonwealth.  By  Na- 
thaniel S.  Shaler,  S.  D.,  Professor  of  Palaeontology,  Harvard  Uni- 
versity. 

MICHIGAN.  A  History  of  Governments.  By  Thomas 

Mclntyre  Cooley,  LL.  D.,  formerly  Chief  Justice  of  ]\Iichigan. 

KANSAS.     The  Prelude  to  the  War  for  the  Union. 

By  Leverett  W.  Spring,  formerly  Professor  in  English  Literature  in 
the  University  of  Kansas. 

CALIFORNIA.     From  the  Conquest  in  1846  to  the 

Second  Vigilance  Committee  in  San  Francisco.  A  Study  of  American 
Character.  By  Josiah  Royce,  Assistant  Professor  of  Pliilosophy  in 
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NEW  YORK.  The  Planting  and  the  Growth  of  the 
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CONNECTICUT.     A  Study  of  a  Commonwealth  De- 

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MISSOURI.   A  Bone  of  Contention.   By  Lucien  Carr, 

M.  A.,  Assistant  Curator  of  the  Peabody  Museum  of  Archaeology. 

INDIANA.     A  Redemption  from  Slavery.     By  J.  P. 

Dunn,  Jr.,  author  of  "  Massacres  of  the  Mountains." 

OHIO.     First  Fruits  of  the  Ordinance  of  1787.     By 

Hon.  Rufus  King. 

VERMONT.     By  Rowland  E.  Robinson. 

/;/  Preparation. 
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